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From  the  collection  of  the 

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San  Francisco,  California 
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THE    FRONTISPIECE 

HERE  is  just  a  glimpse,  but  an  intriguing  one,  of  some  of  the 
things  which  may  be  possible  in  the  postwar  future. 

Note  the  interesting  feature  of  the  prefabricated  house  de- 
signed by  Simon  Breines.  A  sheet  of  water  on  the  house's  roof 
helps  keep  it  cool  in  the  summertime. 

Just  below  is  the  Aerocar,  designed  by  William  Stout  for 
Consolidated  Vultee  Aircraft  Corporation.  For  air  trips,  the 
combined  wings  and  outrigger  can  be  attached  and  the  Aero- 
car  leaves  the  highway  for  swift  cross-country  flights. 

Upper  right  is  Stout's  Helicab.  It  will  be  just  the  thing,  he 
says,  for  city  commuters  to  use  between  office  and  home. 

The  "prefab"  house  below,  and  the  trains,  trucks,  buses  and 
automobiles  further  down,  all  will  be  more  attractive  and  com- 
fortable, and  give  better  service  at  low  cost  because  of  war- 
time advances  in  the  use  of  light  metals,  plastics,  plastic- 
bonded  plywood  and  glass. 

Study  carefully  the  apartment  house  of  the  future,  designed 
by  Walter  B.  Sanders.  The  building  would  consist  of  two  dis- 
tinct elements:  the  structural  frame,  including  floors  and  ceil- 
ings, and  the  individual  apartments  of  the  tenants.  Prefabri- 
cate wall  and  partition  units  could  be  installed  on  order,  with 
the  number  and  placement  of  windows,  size  of  rooms  and 
closets  left  up  to  you. 

Material  for  this  frontispiece  is  used  by  courtesy  of: 

Revere  Copper  and  Brass  Incorporated;  Consolidated  Vultee 
Corporation;  U.  S.  Stoneware  Co.,  producers  of  Reanite;  Bohn 
Aluminum  &  Brass  Corporation,  Bohnalite  &  Bohnolly  Prod- 
ucts; L.  C.  Chase  &  Co.,  makers  of  Chase  Velmo  upholstery. 


BETTER  LIVING  IN  THE 
POSTWAR  WORLD 

By 

NORMAN  V.  CARLISLE 

and 
FRANK  B.  LATHAM 


Neu)  York 

THE   MACMILLAN   COMPANY 
1944 


Copyright,  1944,  by 
NORMAN  V.  CARLISLE. 

All  rights  reserved— no  part  of  this  book  may  be 
reproduced  in  any  form  without  permission  in  writing 
from  the  publisher,  except  by  a  reviewer  who  wishes 
to  quote  brief  passages  in  connection  with  a  review 
written  for  inclusion  in  magazine  or  newspaper. 

Second  printing. 


A  WARTIME  BOOK 
THB  COMPLETE  EDITION  IS  PRODUCED 
IN  FULL  COMPLIANCE  WITH  THE  GOVERN. 
KENT'S  PECULATIONS  FOR  CONSERVING 
P  APEB  AND  OTHER  ESSENTIAL  M  ATEH1AU. 


SET  UP  BY  BROWN  BROTHERS  LINOTYPERS 
PRINTED  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES  OF  AMERICA 


AUTHORS'  FOREWORD 

"MIRACLES  AHEAD — but  'when'?1' 

That  is  the  most  baffling  question  that  confronted  the 
authors  when  they  undertook  this  venture  into  the  troubled 
realm  of  prophecy.  In  fact,  we  may  as  well  confess  that  there 
were  times  when  we  doubted  the  wisdom  of  a  title  containing 
the  word  "miracle."  We  heard  altogether  too  many  dire 
warnings — "Don't  get  people's  hopes  up."  "These  things  take 
time."  "Utopia  can't  be  built  in  a  day." 

On  the  other  hand,  we  felt  safe  in  depending  on  the  un- 
equivocal assertions  of  such  hard-headed  businessmen  as  Edgar 
M.  Queeny,  who  did  not  hesitate  to  say,  "The  possibilities  of 
the  future,  now  that  industry  has  embraced  science,  are  so 
limitless  that  only  one  forecast  can  be  made  with  certainty — 
that  the  most  extravagant  prophecy  will  fall  short  of  potential 
accomplishment! " 

We  had  no  intention  of  making  this  book  an  "extravagant 
prophecy."  We  think  it's  a  conservative  one.  But  we  just  can't 
say  when.  That  is  not  dodging  issues.  We  know  that  after 
listening  to  the  perfectly  sound  arguments  of  people  who 
have  every  good  reason  to  know.  For  example,  Walter  Dorwin 
Teague,  the  noted  industrial  designer,  squares  off  against  his 
fellow  industrial  designer,  Raymond  Loewy,  with  completely 
opposite  views. 

Says  Teague:  "It  is  my  firm  conviction,  based  on  direct 
knowledge,  that  as  soon  as  production  can  be  resumed  after 
victory,  the  public  will  be  offered  new  and  greatly  improved 
models  in  most,  if  not  all  lines  of  consumer  goods.  And,  as 
soon  as  retooling  and  testing  can  be  accomplished,  new 


vi  Authors'  Foreword 

products  will  appear  which  will  make  the  fanciful  predictions 
that  decorate  our  advertising  pages  today  seem  commonplace." 

Says  Loewy:  "To  the  scrap  heap  of  discredited  but  once 
popular  theories — such  as  the  Townsend  Plan,  Technocracy, 
the  Bolshevik  menace,  successful  Nazi  appeasement — please 
add  another,  the  immediate  Postwar  Dream  World.  To  be 
honest — and  certainly  the  time  is  ripe  for  facing  issues 
squarely — the  wonderful  new  products  will  be  a  long  time 
coming,  if  they  ever  do." 

To  be  perfectly  frank,  there  is  a  controversy  going  on.  It 
is  a  heated  controversy  in  which  the  authors  feel  something 
like  innocent  by-standers.  Essentially,  it  has  been  our  purpose 
to  present  a  reporter's  picture  of  what  is  happening  today, 
what  is  already  on  the  drawing  boards,  what  scientists  and 
industrialists  think  can  be  done  to  provide  "better  living  in  the 
postwar  world."  So — forgive  us — we  are  going  to  leave  it  to 
the  reader  to  decide  when.  On  the  other  hand,  we  do  not  think 
that  some  pretty  remarkable  things  will  be  too  long  in  coming. 
We  think  that  by  the  time  you  get  around  to  cashing  in  those 
war  bonds  you  have  been  buying  there  will  be  some  fascinat- 
ing new  ways  to  spend  the  money.  We  think  that  the  dynam- 
ics of  American  business  drive  it  ahead,  sometimes  even  faster 
than  the  businessmen  themselves  expect. 

We  want  especially  to  thank  the  many  industrialists,  scien- 
tists, designers,  engineers  and  sales  managers  who  have  given 
so  much  of  their  time  to  pass  on  their  views  for  "Miracles 
Ahead." 

NORMAN  V.  CARLISLE 
FRANK  B.  LATHAM 
New  York  City 
January  i,  1944 


CONTENTS 


I      TOMORROW'S  WORLD  i 

War-production  techniques  have  created  the  tools 
and  equipment  necessary  for  the  manufacture  of 
startlingly  new  articles  for  civilian  use  after  the  war 
.  .  .  Clues  to  the  future:  Extraordinary  new  metals 
that  will  transform  cars,  trains,  and  ships  .  .  .  Elec- 
tronic "watchmen"  .  .  .  Fabulous  plastics  .  .  .  New 
uses  for  paper,  wood,  and  glass  .  .  .  World  trans- 
portation by  air  .  .  .  Private  flying  .  .  .  New  agri- 
cultural techniques  .  .  .  Population  shifts. 

II      A  CASTLE  FOR  EVERY  MAN  1 2 

The  prefabricated  house  .  .  .  The  War  Set  the  Pace 
.  .  .  Standardization? .  .  .  The  Circular  House  .  .  . 
Buy  Your  Home — Rent  Your  Land  .  .  .  Tradition 
Takes  a  Back  Seat .  .  .  Trading  in  Your  Old  Rooms 
.  .  .  Apartments  of  Tomorrow  .  .  .  Design  Your 
Own  Apartment .  .  .  Problems  Ahead. 

III  LITTLE  MIRACLES  29 

Appliances  of  tomorrow  .  .  .  Modern  Lighting 
Equipment .  .  ."Laundering"  the  Air  .  .  .  Smoke- 
less Furnaces  .  .  .  Soundproofing  .  .  .  Proper 
Acoustics  .  .  .  Radiant  Heating  .  .  .  Built-in  Furni- 
ture .  .  .  Mass-Produced  Closets  .  .  .  Small  Items 
That  Mean  Comfort  ...  A  Modern  Bathroom 
.  .  .  Refrigerator  Drawers  .  .  .  The  Hamby 
"Kitchenless  House." 

IV  CARS  OF  THE  1960*8  42 

Materials  used  in  the  manufacture  of  war  planes  will 
be  used  in  the  automobiles  of  the  future  .  .  .  New 
Low  Prices  .  .  .  Old  Ideas  Die  Slowly  ...  En- 
gines Move  Back  .  .  .  New  Metals  for  New  Motors 
.  .  .  Renaissance  of  the  Diesels  .  .  .  Jeeps  for  the 
Farm  .  .  .  The  Plastic  Car  .  .  .  New  Gasoline 

vii 


viii  Contents 

.   .   .  Future  Traffic  Solutions  .    .    .  The  Radio 
Traffic  Cop  .  .  .  Radar  for  Driving  Safety  .  .  . 
Postwar  Dilemma. 

V      YOUR  FLYING  FLIVVER  60 

Development  of  private  flying  .  .  .  Your  First  Plane 
— the  Helicopter .  .  .  How  to  Fly  a  Helicopter .  .  . 
Sikorsky's  First  Helicopter  .  .  .  War  Duties  of  the 
Helicopter  .  .  .  Postwar  Tasks  of  the  Helicopter 
.  .  .  The  De  Bothezat  Helicopter  .  .  .  The  HeHcab 
.  .  .  The  Autogiro  .  .  .  The  Convertaplane  .  .  . 
New  Light  Planes  .  .  .  Stout's  Sky  Car  .  .  .  Simpli- 
fied Flying  Techniques  .  .  .  Safety  at  Night. 

VI      GLOBAL  TRANSPORTATION  76 

You  will  visit  foreign  lands  .  .  .  New  Shipping 
Centers  .  .  .  $10,000,000  Seadromes  .  .  .  Passenger 
Stratoliners  .  .  .  Air  Cargo  .  .  .  The  Army's  Air 
Transport  Command  .  .  .The  Naval  Air  Transport 
Service  .  .  .  Speedier  Loading  Techniques  .  „  . 
Glider  "Freight  Trains".  .  .  The  Rocket  Motor 
.  .  .  Radio  Aids  .  .  .  The  Finest  Airways  System 
on  Earth  .  .  .  Solutions  for  Postwar  Unemploy- 
ment .  .  .  Other  Postwar  Issues. 

VII      BY  LAND  AND  SEA  101 

The  truth  about  air  cargo  .  .  .  "The  Battle  of  Trans- 
portation". .  .  Trucks  and  Busses  Hold  Their  Own 
.  .  .  Shipbuilding  Magic  .  .  .  The  Diesels  Step 
Ahead  .  .  .  Airplane  and  Ship  Competition. 

VIII      YOUR  NEW  SERVANTS:  THE  ELECTRONIC 

"WATCHMEN"  115 

The  open  door  to  a  miracle  world  .  .  .  Edison  Dis- 
covered the  Secret  .  .  .  Radar  .  .  .  Radio-Fre- 
quency Heating  .  .  .  X-Raying  Steel  .  .  .  The 
Photoelectric  Tube  .  .  .  Testing  the  Ripeness  of  a 
Melon  .  .  .  Checking  Moving  Objects  .  .  .  New 
Medical  Servants. 

IX      NEW  TELEVISION  AND  RADIO  SERVICES  1 3  2 

How  long  will  television  be  "just  around  the  cor- 
ner"? .  .  .  Television  Service  in  England  .  .  .  Spy- 


Contents  ix 

ing  upon  the  Enemy  via  Television  .  .  .  Television 
Prospects  in  America  .  .  .  The  Actor  Comes  into 
His  Own  .  .  .  The  Fighting  Man's  "Nerve  Center" 
.  .  .  Indestructible  Radios  for  the  Armed  Forces 
.  .  .  Radio  Safety  Devices  ...  A  Word  about  Fre- 
quencies .  .  .  Sending  Pictures  by  Radio. 

X      CHEMISTRY  MAGIC  149 

The  incredible  plastics  .  .  .  Precious  Synthetic  Rub- 
ber .  .  .  How  Synthetic  Rubber  Is  Made  .  .  .  Bless 
John  Barleycorn  .  .  ."Bathtub"  Rubber  .  .  .  Syn- 
thetic Rubber  Is  Here  to  Stay  .  .  .  Untapped  Re- 
sources in  Natural  Rubber  .  .  .  An  Exploit  of  the 
Century  .  .  .  Fabulous  New  Wealth  .  .  .The  Great 
Compounds.  .  .The  Super-super  By-Product:  Coal 
Tar  ...  A  Ton  of  Coal  ...  OH,  the  Chemist's 
Proxy  for  Coal .  .  .  The  Plastics  .  .  .  The  Hard 
Resilient  Plastics  .  .  .  Plastics  from  the  Ocean  .  .  . 
Replacing  Light  Metals  .  .  .  Plastic  Bearings  .  .  . 
Achieving  the  Impossible  .  .  .  Winning  Chemical 
Leadership  from  Germany  .  .  .  Breaking  the  Japa- 
nese Camphor  Monopoly  .  .  .  Creating  New 
Wealth  in  Agriculture  .  .  .  Synthetic  Textiles  .  .  . 
Postwar  Predictions. 


XI      METALS  THAT  BUILD  NEW  WORLDS  172 

Manufacture  of  war  planes  stimulated  development 
of  new  metals  .  .  .  The  Story  of  Aluminum  .  .  . 
The  Ocean  as  a  Treasure  Chest .  .  .  One  Pound  of 
Magnesium  .  .  ."Tailor-Made"  Steel .  .  .  Precious 
Common  Metals  .  .  .  Uncommon  Metals  .  .  . 
Beryllium — the  Magic  Metal .  .  ."Powder  Metal- 
lurgy." 

XII      WOOD,  PAPER,  AND  GLASS  TRANSFORMED  185 

New  treatments  of  paper  .  .  .  Nazi  Germany's  Re- 
liance on  Wood  .  .  .  American  Advances  in  Wood 
Chemistry  .  .  .  Warm  Clothes  from  the  Bark  of 
Trees  .  .  .  New  Treatments  for  New  Tensile 
Strengths  .  .  .  Forest  Conservation  .  .  .  Glass  Mir- 
acles .  .  .  New  Techniques  in  Glassmaking. 


x  Contents 

XIII  FORTUNES  IN  AGRICULTURE  199 

Solutions  for  postwar  surpluses  .  .  .  New  Uses  for 
Skimmed  Milk  .  .  .  The  Soybean  .  .  .  The  Castor 
Bean — a  New  Treasure  .  .  .  Flax  Straw  for  Ciga- 
rette Paper  .  .  .  Our  Own  Herbs  and  Drugs  .  .  . 
Cotton  By-Products  .  .  .  Cottonleather  .  .  .  Cotton 
Fire  Hose  .  .  .  Cotton  Roads  .  .  .  Corn  for  Photo- 
graphic Films  .  .  .  Oat  Hulls  in  the  Synthetic-Rub- 
ber Field  .  .  .  By-Products  of  Wood  .  .  .  No  Soap 
Shortage  Ahead  .  .  .  Soil  Building  .  .  .  Soil-less 
Agriculture  .  .  .  Farming  in  the  Desert  .  .  . 
Growth-Promoting  Techniques  .  .  .  Making  the 
Farm  More  Livable. 

XIV  FOOD  FOR  BUOYANT  HEALTH  216 

Food  shortage  an  old  story  in  America  .  .  .  Urgent 
Need  of  Food  Education  .  .  .  Uninformed  Buying 
.  .  .  Wasted  Minerals  .  .  .  Napoleon  Counted  on 
Food  .  .  .  Protein  Shortages  the  Most  Deadly  .  .  . 
Dehydrated  Foods  to  the  Fore  .  .  .  The  Mechanical 
Cow. 

XV      MEDICINE  LOOKS  AHEAD  228 

First-aid  procedures  at  the  front  .  .  .  New  Medical 
Kit .  .  .The  Hospital  Corps  at  the  Front .  .  .  Blood 
Plasma  .  .  .  Mobile  X-Ray  Unit  .  .  .  The  "Closed 
Treatment"  for  Fractures  .  .  .  The  Base  Hospital 
.  .  .  Mobile  Bacteriological  Laboratory  .  .  .  The 
Navy's  Hospital  Ships  .  .  .The  Magical  Sulf a  Drugs 
.  .  .  Penicillin — Germ  Destroyer  .  .  .  Gramicidin 
— New  Microbe  Killer  .  .  .  Streptothricin — An- 
other Microbe  Killer  .  .  .  Quinine  Substitutes — 
"Health  Bomb"  for  Mosquitoes  .  .  .  Waging  War 
on  Epidemic  Diseases  .  .  .  The  Amino  Acids  Pro- 
mote Health  and  Beauty  .  .  .  Nature's  Most  Power- 
ful Vitamin  ...  A  Clue  to  Cancer  .  .  .  Research 
Work  on  the  Common  Cold  .  .  .  Blood  Plasma  for 
Civilian  Use  .  .  .  Transplanting  Vital  Organs  .  .  . 
A  Cure  for  Deafness  .  .  .  Treatment  for  Hyper- 
tension .  .  .  Regional  Anesthesia  .  .  .  Electronic 
Aids  .  .  .  Onion  "Broadcasts"  .  .  .  Old- Age  Treat- 
ments .  .  .  Air-Age  Problems. 


Contents  xi 

XVI      MORE  MIRACLES  AHEAD  261 

Using  the  atomic  energy  in  a  lump  of  coal  to  run  a 
factory  for  a  week  .  .  .  The  Amazing  Cyclotron 
.  .  .  Harnessing  the  Sun's  Rays  .  .  .  Electricity  as 
Cheap  as  Water  .  .  .  Agricultural  Yields  Tripled 
.  .  .  Ships  without  Crews  .  .  .  Edible  "Cans"  .  .  . 
The  Vortex  Gun. 

INDEX  273 


TOMORROW'S   WORLD 

IT  is  ONE  OF  THE  major  ironies  of  human  history  that  modern 
war  has  contributed  so  much  to  material  progress.  Barbaric 
and  wasteful  as  the  two  wars  of  this  century  have  been,  each 
has  brought  some  compensating  gains  that  may  be  said  to 
make  up  in  some  measure  for  the  staggering  loss  in  blood  and 
treasure.  The  pressing  need  for  the  production  of  the  machines 
of  war  has  launched  new  industries,  stimulated  new  skills, 
created  new  products  and  ways  of  producing  them.  Added 
together  they  present  a  startling  picture  of  postwar  possibili- 
ties. It  is  perhaps  true  that  the  foreshadowed  changes  would 
have  come  anyway,  but  the  time  element  has  been  telescoped. 
Science  and  industry  have  proved  their  amazing  ability  to 
work  together  in  the  interests  of  destruction.  Their  partner- 
ship, strong  before  the  war,  has  become  stronger  still.  And 
now  both  have  new  tools  to  work  with.  Anyone  with  a 
knowledge  of  these  tools  can  have  no  doubt  that  tremendous 
changes  in  American  living  lie  directly  ahead. 

Tremendous  changes  in  the  American  scene  lie  directly 
ahead.  Most  of  us  have  realized  that  the  war  would  bring 
new  developments — that  this  country  could  not  take  an  active 
part  in  the  world  conflict  and  remain  the  same.  We  know 
that  the  first  World  War  brought  about  changes  in  this 
country  that  were  more  revolutionary  and  far-reaching  than 
all  the  events  of  the  previous  fifty  years.  We  are  aware  that 
this  war  is  sweeping  away  many  familiar  things  and  usher- 
ing in  new  ones.  But  few  of  us  guess  the  extent  and  scope  of 
the  changes  that  loom  before  us  now. 


2  Miracles  Ahead! 

There  is  a  profound  difference  not  only  between  the  nature 
of  the  war  that  we  entered  in  1917  and  that  which  we  entered 
in  the  1940*8,  but  between  the  situation  that  confronted  the 
United  States  in  1917  and  that  which  we  faced  during  the 
1940*5.  These  differences  mean  far  more  drastic  changes  dur- 
ing the  postwar  era  of  World  War  II  than  was  the  case  after 
the  last  conflict. 

In  1917  we  entered  the  war  fresh,  with  a  long  period  of 
peace  and  prosperity  behind  us  and  with  an  abundance  of 
natural  resources  and  man  power  available.  Within  a  remark- 
ably short  period  of  time  our  industrial  technicians  found 
ways  and  means  of  producing  the  immense  quantities  of  war 
materiel  required.  They  had  the  advantage  of  an  abundance 
of  everything  needed  for  the  task.  Time  was  more  precious 
than  materials  and  they  were  free  to  squander  prodigious 
quantities  of  raw  materials  in  various  trial-and-error  proce- 
dures that  saved  time.  Incidentally,  the  war  fronts  to  be  sup- 
plied were  confined  to  a  fairly  small  area  of  one  continent! 

In  the  1940*5  we  entered  a  titanic  struggle  on  a  world- wide 
basis — after  an  engulfing  depression  that  had  lasted  nearly  a 
decade  and  that  had  weakened  and  dispersed  our  man  power; 
depleted  our  reserves  of  tools,  machines,  and  raw  supplies; 
disrupted  our  economy.  Our  industrial  technicians  faced  a 
superhuman  task.  There  was  a  desperate  shortage  of  plant  and 
factory  space,  machines,  equipment,  and  materials  available 
as  compared  with  the  amount  needed.  There  was  an  even 
more  critical  shortage  of  skilled  workmen. 

New  inventions,  discoveries,  and  procedures  that  had  been 
introduced  years  earlier,  and  that  would  have  greatly  expe- 
dited the  mass-production  techniques  needed,  had  been  set 
aside  during  the  depression  years.  Producers  had  been  unable 
to  embark  on  new  ventures  in  the  face  of  an  uncertain  mar- 
ket. Discouraged  about  this  situation,  our  leading  designers, 
engineers,  chemists,  and  technicians  had  pigeonholed  new 


Tomorrows  World  3 

ideas;  and  blueprints  and  chemical  formulas  of  all  kinds  were 
allowed  to  gather  dust  in  office  files  for  years.  Technological 
advances  had  been  brought  almost  to  a  standstill  as  compared 
with  the  progress  made  in  normal  times. 

The  dramatic  and  important  difference  between  this  situa- 
tion and  that  of  1917  was  the  fact  that,  in  1940,  time,  men, 
and  materials  were  all  equally  precious.  In  this  fact  lies  the 
clue  to  the  amazing  peacetime  developments  on  the  horizon. 
Shortcuts  of  a  breath-taking  variety  were  in  order.  New  tech- 
niques in  mass  production  on  a  vaster  scale  than  anyone  had 
hitherto  believed  possible  were  essential.  Every  possible  device 
for  saving  man  hours,  especially  of  skilled  workmen,  had 
become  imperative.  There  was  no  margin  for  waste.  There 
was  no  real  margin  of  safety  for  error  and  everyone  knew 
that  errors  would  be  made.  Yet  many  dangerous  gambles  had 
to  be  taken. 

For  example,  blueprints  for  new  tools  and  machines,  chem- 
ical formulas  on  paper,  and  drafts  of  new  processes  utilizing 
waste  materials  that  have  been  gathering  dust  in  the  files  for 
years  are  of  limited  value.  Performance  records  are  urgently 
necessary.  But  time  did  not  permit  the  exhaustive  investiga- 
tion and  checking  ordinarily  undertaken.  In  many  cases  tech- 
nicians were  obliged  to  go  ahead  with  production  plans  with- 
out the  benefit  of  essential  data,  relying  on  routine  tests  and 
their  previous  experience  with  similar  tools  and  procedures. 
The  risk  was  staggering.  During  this  period-  technicians  lived 
with  their  hearts  in  their  throats.  Every  scrap  of  material  had 
to  be  made  to  go  further  than  it  had  ever  gone  before.  Then 
came  the  crisis  in  raw  materials.  In  some  cases  engineers  called 
upon  the  industrial  chemists  actually  to  create  new  materials 
to  take  the  place  of  raw  supplies. 

As  Theodore  G.  Joslin,  Director  of  Public  Relations  for 
E.  I.  du  Pont  de  Nemours  and  Company,  revealed,  "Our 
laboratories  were  scoured  for  new  things.  The  scarcity  of 


4  Miracles  Ahead! 

conventional  materials  led  producers  to  turn  to  anything 
promising  in  the  way  of  substitutes." 

Procedures  that  no  one  in  his  right  mind  would  have  even 
contemplated  in  peacetime  were  grimly  tackled  and  made  to 
work.  Radically  new  materials  were  employed  for  uses  that 
seemed,  at  first  thought,  utterly  preposterous,  as  in  the  case 
of  plastics  for  bearings  and  for  cartridge  cases.  Traditional 
methods  of  assembly  were  swept  aside  for  new  ones.  In  some 
plants  the  break  with  the  past  was  so  complete  that  anyone 
visiting  them  in  1940  and  then  again  in  1942  would  imagine 
that  there  had  been  a  lapse  of  twenty  years  instead  of  two 
between  the  visits. 

The  roster  of  men  who  gave  their  last  ounce  of  energy,  wit, 
and  ingenuity  to  the  task  of  making  us  ready  for  war  is  a  long 
one.  It  includes  eminent  scientists,  engineers,  and  designers; 
many  brilliant  youngsters  who  sprang  out  of  nowhere  during 
the  emergency  and  whose  names  are  as  yet  unknown  to  us; 
and  also  a  large  number  of  familiar  prosaic  business  personali- 
ties with  whom  we  do  not  ordinarily  associate  heroic  exploits. 
Nevertheless  this  group  of  men  comprises  the  list  of  front- 
line heroes  without  whom  the  war  could  not  have  been  prose- 
cuted— though  the  risks  they  assumed  involved  too  many 
sleepless  nights  and  days  and  too  many  cups  of  black  coffee 
rather  than  bullets  and  shrapnel.  The  day-and-night  thinking 
and  planning  that  went  on  in  the  designing  rooms  and  labo- 
ratories during  this  zero  hour  made  possible  the  war-produc- 
tion miracles  we  are  witnessing  today. 

New  Resources  for  Peacetime 

The  fantastic  achievements  of  industry  during  the  past 
thirty  months  mean  significant  developments  in  the  postwar 
era.  As  strange  as  it  may  seem,  considering  the  appalling  drain 
on  our  resources  that  war  always  entails,  we  will  emerge 


Tomorrow's  World  5 

from  this  war  with  new  resources  of  greater  potential  value 
than  any  we  possessed  previously.  We  have  learned  how  to 
tap  the  ocean  for  the  minerals  needed  for  the  manufacture  of 
cheap,  powerful  lightweight  metals  superior  to  any  made 
before  the  war,  thereby  making  the  ocean  a  new  treasure 
chest.  The  science  of  electronics  has  been  advanced  to  a  point 
where  its  value  is  now  comparable  to  the  acquisition  of  one 
hundred  million  ne*w  skilled  workmen.  We  have  developed 
plastics  and  new  processes  for  treating  wood,  paper,  and 
glass  that  are  almost  equal  in  value  to  the  discovery  of  new 
elements. 

These  facts  alone  mean  a  great  abundance  of  beautiful, 
durable  articles  for  everyday  use  at  a  fraction  of  the  cost  of 
prewar  merchandise.  But  there  are  many  many  more  new 
inventions  and  processes  of  almost  equal  importance  now 
being  employed  for  war  production  (a  large  number  of  which 
cannot  be  revealed  at  this  time  for  obvious  military  reasons) 
that  will  later  mean  greater  comfort  and  convenience  than 
we  have  ever  dreamed  possible. 

Way  up  at  the  head  of  the  list  of  miraculous  items  that  we 
may  expect  to  see  and  use  in  the  postwar  world  are  passenger 
cars  that  can  be  transformed  into  airplanes  or  helicopters, 
electronic  "watchmen"  that  can  test  the  ripeness  of  a  melon 
or  count  the  number  of  people  in  a  room  and  turn  off  the 
lights  when  the  last  one  has  departed,  glider  "freight  trains" 
hitched  to  a  "locomotive"  plane  carrying  cargo  overhead. 
We  will  enjoy  the  benefits  of  new  processes  that  can  now 
transform  the  bark  of  trees  into  warm  wool  cloth,  paper  into 
weatherproof  panels  for  the  walls  of  houses,  glass  so  resilient 
that  it  can  support  the  weight  of  an  elephant,  electric  light 
that  will  also  destroy  bacteria,  and  even  a  process  that  will 
transform  sawdust  into  raw  sugar — to  name  a  few  of  the 
things  to  come. 

The  mass-production  techniques  now  being  employed  for 


6  Miracles  Ahead! 

gargantuan  quantities  of  war  materiel  will  later  be  used  to 
turn  out,  by  the  thousands,  new  cars  that  are  lighter  and 
swifter  than  any  we  have  seen  to  date  and  that  will  be  a  third 
lower  in  price  than  the  cheapest  prewar  car;  prefabricated 
homes  equipped  with  modern  lighting,  plumbing,  and  air- 
conditioning  units  (homes  fit  for  kings) ;  helicopters  and  small 
easy-to-maneuver  planes  for  civilian  use  to  be  sold  at  the  price 
of  a  good  car;  new  tools,  appliances,  and  machines  of  every 
type  and  description. 

The  Revolution  in  Transportation 

It  is  difficult  for  most  people  at  this  time  to  grasp  the  sig- 
nificance of  the  new  metals  that  have  been  developed  for  air- 
plane manufacture.  These  powerful  lightweight  metals  will 
do  as  much  to  transform  the  appearance  of  tomorrow's  world 
as  will  any  other  thing.  They  will  take  the  place  of  many 
heavy,  cumbersome,  unwieldy  metals  previously  used  for 
buildings  and  conveyances.  We  will  have  new  cars,  trucks, 
busses,  trains,  and  ships  made  with  these  metals  that  will  be 
thousands  of  pounds  lighter  in  weight,  far  cheaper  to  buy  and 
also  to  operate.  All  transportation  in  the  future  will  be  swifter, 
quieter,  safer,  and  less  costly. 

But  perhaps  the  most  striking  innovation,  which  will  make 
all  of  us  peer  heavenward  more  often,  will  be  the  introduc- 
tion of  helicopters  for  a  variety  of  uses.  A  number  of  applica- 
tions have  already  been  filed  with  the  CAB  for  helicopter 
services — one  company  requesting  "Helicopter  service  to 
carry  air  mail  and  express  to  and  from  the  rooftops  of  over 
four  hundred  post  offices  and  railroad  stations  in  the  six  New 
England  States  and  New  York." 

We  can  also  anticipate  helicopter  service  to  and  from  large 
cities  and  their  outlying  suburbs  and  the  use  of  many  pri- 
vately owned  helicopters  for  family  week-end  trips  and  for 


Tomorrow's  World  7 

summer  commuting  to  and  from  the  "place  in  the  country." 
Before  the  end  of  this  decade  it  is  more  than  likely  that — as 
Igor  I.  Sikorsky,  the  designer  of  the  helicopter  bearing  his 
name,  believes — there  will  be  more  than  one  million  helicop- 
ters in  everyday  use  in  the  United  States.  They  are  the  "fliv- 
vers" of  tomorrow. 


The  Change  in  Population  Centers 

Every  improvement  in  transportation  in  the  past  has  had 
profound  effects  upon  the  development  of  cities  in  this 
country.  The  first  cities  were  located  at  navigable  harbors. 
The  steamboat  made  possible  the  growth  of  cities  inland 
along  navigable  rivers.  The  railroads  opened  the  West,  and 
cities  made  their  appearance  on  vacant  prairies,  up  in  the 
mountain  passes,  and  in  the  distant  valleys  of  the  South,  West 
and  the  North.  The  air  transportation  of  tomorrow  means 
new  changes.  The  trend  toward  decentralization  that  has 
already  commenced  will  be  sharply  accelerated  by  the  cheap 
air  routes  of  the  postwar  era.  There  will  be  many  more  all- 
year-round  country  homes  used  by  city  people  who  will  com- 
mute to  work  by  air.  New  summer  resorts  will  make  their 
appearance  in  Alaska  and  the  upland  regions  of  South  Amer- 
ica. Vacationing  on  other  continents,  however,  is  certain  to 
become  a  general  practice  among  Americans  in  the  future. 
The  large  air-line  companies  are  already  working  on  plans  for 
three-cent-a-mile  global  air  service. 

New  Business  Opportunities 

All  of  these  changes  will  create  the  need  of  many  new 
agencies,  services,  and  supply  sources.  Every  airfield  along  a 
regular  transportation  route  will  become  the  center  for  new 
stores,  shops,  and  office  buildings  that  will  be  erected  close 


8  Miracles  Ahead! 

by;  for  the  railroads  will  carry  more  and  more  freight  and 
fewer  passengers,  a  prospect,  incidentally,  that  does  not 
wholly  displease  them.  There  is  a  far  greater  profit  in  freight 
service  than  in  passenger  service.  The  more  planes  there  are 
in  operation,  the  more  freight  the  railroads  will  carry;  for 
the  manufacture  and  operation  of  planes  mean  more  trans- 
portation of  oil,  coal,  ore,  steel,  machinery  of  all  kinds. 

The  manufacture  of  thousands  of  prefabricated  houses,  new 
cars,  helicopters,  planes,  and  household  appliances  will  obvi- 
ously call  for  a  vast  army  of  salesmen,  brokers,  agents,  and 
promoters — nearly  five  times  as  many  as  were  needed  during 
the  nineteen-twenties.  Servicemen  by  the  thousands  will  be 
needed  for  repair  and  maintenance  work  on  these  homes,  cars, 
and  aircraft.  The  need  for  thousands  of  small  businesses  will 
automatically  appear  as  the  new  patterns  of  living  become 
crystallized. 

Another  slant  on  postwar  business  worth  keeping  in  mind 
is  the  fact  that  for  more  than  a  decade  before  we  entered  the 
world  conflict  we  went  through  the  most  critical  period  of 
underconsumption  (compared  with  our  productive  capacity) 
in  our  history.  By  1939  there  were  miles  upon  miles  of  build- 
ing surfaces  in  need  of  paint  and  repair  from  coast  to  coast, 
miles  upon  miles  of  plumbing  and  plumbing  equipment  hardly 
fit  for  use  and,  in  many  cases,  a  menace  to  community  health. 
There  were  millions  of  homes  in  which  electrical  appliances, 
furniture,  draperies,  and  fixtures  had  become  worn,  shabby, 
or  broken  and  in  need  of  replacement.  Before  these  needs 
could  be  supplied,  we  entered  the  war  and  the  curtailment  of 
goods  for  consumer  use  began.  To  sum  up — the  undercon- 
sumption of  the  necessities  has  gone  on  in  this  country  for 
nearly  fifteen  years!  Meanwhile  millions  of  Americans  have 
been  earning  higher  wages  and  salaries  than  ever  before. 

Barring  inflation  or  some  unforeseen  eventuality,  we  have 
reason  to  expect  a  boom  of  greater  proportions  than  anything 


Tomorrows  World  9 

we  have  known  before  and,  with  it,  the  introduction  of  hun- 
dreds of  new  products  along  the  lines  already  suggested  and 
many  others  too.  Giant  strides  in  agriculture  are  being  ush- 
ered in  with  the  stimulus  of  the  serious  food  shortages.  Every 
large  food  manufacturer  has  new  foods  and  new  food  prod- 
ucts to  introduce  to  the  public  at  the  close  of  the  war.  Many 
of  these  products  were  developed  for  use  by  the  armed  forces 
and  offer  new  taste  thrills  as  well  as  high  nutritive  values. 
Others  came  about  through  laboratory  research  undertaken 
during  the  food  crisis. 

The  textile  field  has  likewise  benefited  by  the  stimulus  of 
wartime  exigencies.  We  shall  see  a  great  variety  of  beautiful 
new  fabrics  with  finer  wearing  qualities  at  lower  prices  as 
soon  as  the  resumption  of  the  manufacture  of  consumer  goods 
is  permissible  on  a  peacetime  basis.  Research  carried  out  by 
manufacturers  and  by  government  technicians  in  order  to 
find  ways  and  means  of  supplying  the  armed  forces  with  a 
great  number  of  durable  fabrics  suitable  for  different  climates, 
and  for  use  under  varying  conditions,  resulted  in  new  tech- 
niques and  processes  whereby  magnificent  fabrics  can  be  pro- 
duced for  a  fraction  of  their  former  cost. 

A  New  Era  of  Individualism 

While  discussions  on  the  pros  and  cons  of  collectivism  and 
individualism  have  been  under  way  during  recent  years,  our 
engineers  and  inventors  have  been  busy  with  blueprints  for 
new  machines  and  devices  more  certain  to  change  the  course 
of  our  destiny  than  all  of  the  conversations  of  the  past  one 
hundred  years.  Nearly  every  large  aircraft  company  in  the 
United  States  has  blueprints  on  hand  for  giant  air  liners,  some 
of  them  three-decker  types  with  promenade  decks,  lounge 
and  dining  rooms,  and  accommodations  for  about  two  hun- 
dred people — planes  for  commuter  service  to  and  from  New 


io  Miracles  Ahead! 

York  and  London,  New  York  and  Brazil,  New  York  and 
Buenos  Aires,  and  other  points  of  the  globe.  Clearly  a  new 
low-priced  air-transportation  era  will  be  ushered  in  with  the 
end  of  the  war. 

Where  we  once  faced  the  wilderness  of  our  West  with 
horses  and  covered  wagons,  intent  upon  building  a  new  civili- 
zation, we  now  face  our  ocean  boundaries  and  look  upon 
continents  only  hours  away  that  need  our  skills,  production 
techniques,  and  research  procedures  for  the  building  of  a 
sounder,  better  civilization.  Unless  we  find  ways  of  raising 
the  standard  of  living  for  the  populations  of  other  countries, 
we  cannot  hope  to  maintain  our  own  standards  for  long.  This 
immense  undertaking  lies  not  in  the  distant  future  but  in  the 
very  near  future.  The  commuter  air  service  between  conti- 
nents is  one  means  of  making  this  feasible.  Our  businessmen, 
craftsmen,  and  technicians  will  be  able  to  travel  to  and  from 
South  America,  Africa,  Australia,  and  the  Far  East  in  a  mat- 
ter of  hours,  not  weeks  or  months.  Where  opportunities  for 
establishing  new  businesses  in  foreign  lands  existed  in  the  past 
only  for  large  corporations,  low-cost  air  service  will  make  it 
possible  for  the  enterprising  individual  to  launch  new  services 
and  agencies  in  other  countries  too. 

The  world  we  knew  yesterday  has  already  slipped  around 
the  corner  and  a  new  one  beckons.  Our  frontiers,  in  the  old 
geographical  sense,  have  vanished.  We  face  a  new  world  in 
which  the  reward  for  individual  ingenuity,  wit,  and  initiative 
will  be  higher  than  it  has  ever  been  before.  It  will  be  a  world 
that  will  call  for  daring  and  imagination.  We  will  be  con- 
fronted by  problems  with  which  we  have  had  little  or  no 
previous  experience,  and  by  opportunities  so  new  and  strange 
that  they  will  challenge  every  ounce  of  resourcefulness  we 
can  muster.  A  certain  readiness  to  accept  new  ideas  and  to 
adjust  to  new  situations  will  be  demanded  of  all  of  us. 

The  story  of  the  new  inventions,  discoveries,  and  processes 


Tomorrows  World  n 

revealed  in  the  following  chapters  of  this  book  suggests  the 
scope  of  the  changes  before  us.  In  each  innovation  there  are 
a  score  of  business  opportunities.  It  is  possible  that  the  com- 
mercial development  of  these  innovations  may  bring  even 
greater  changes  than  anyone  can  visualize  at  this  time. 


II 

A    CASTLE    FOR    EVERY    MAN 

LET  us  SAY  that  the  year  is  194-.  You  have  decided  that  you 
need  a  new  home.  You  will  be  able  to  order  it  from  your 
local  department  store  or  from  an  agent  in  your  town  who 
sells  cars,  "family-size"  airplanes,  helicopters,  and  houses. 
You  will  make  a  down  payment  on  the  house  and  arrange  to 
pay  the  balance  in  installments.  Since  you  have  already  rented 
a  lot,  you  will  now  order  a  local  contractor  to  build  the 
cement  piers  that  will  be  required  for  the  foundation  of  your 
new  home.  This  done,  you  will  set  the  date  for  the  delivery 
of  your  house  and  at  the  same  time  you  will  order  the  mov- 
ing men  to  deliver  your  furniture. 

When  the  day  comes,  your  new  dwelling  will  arrive  in  a 
large  truck.  Six  men  have  been  sent  along  to  erect  your  house. 
They  will  haul  the  floor,  wall,  and  ceiling  panels  from  the 
truck.  Meanwhile  a  crane  will  lift  the  utility  unit  from  the 
truck  and  place  it  on  the  foundation.  This  unit  is  the  "heart" 
of  your  house.  It  consists  of  a  section  of  the  bathroom  and 
kitchen  floors,  plus  the  upright  wall  dividing  the  two  rooms, 
and  all  the  bathroom  and  kitchen  equipment.  The  copper 
pipes  for  water  and  drains  are  inside  the  panels  of  the  utility 
units,  ready  to  be  connected  with  the  utility  lines  from  the 
street. 

When  the  "heart"  of  the  house  is  in  place,  the  other  sec- 
tions are  fitted  together  around  it.  They  fit  snugly  and  are 
airtight.  Next  come  the  room  panels  and  the  outside  wall  pan- 
els which  form  the  frame  of  the  house.  Then  the  roof  and 
ceiling  panels  are  lifted  into  position  and  fastened  down. 


12 


A  Castle  for  Every  Man  13 

While  you  are  admiring  the  color  schemes  of  each  room,  the 
moving  van  will  arrive  with  your  furniture.  Your  house  is 
ready.  By  nightfall  you  will  be  seated  at  the  dinner  table  in 
your  dining  room  enjoying  your  first  meal  in  your  new 
home. 

No  hammering  of  nails  or  sawing  of  lumber  went  on  while 
your  house  was  being  erected.  There  were  no  grunts  or 
groans  from  the  workmen  as  they  lifted  the  hurricane-proof 
but  light  panels  into  place.  Nor  did  the  plasterers,  painters, 
or  paper  hangers  put  in  an  appearance.  The  panels  of  your 
new  home  have  a  resilient  finish,  in  the  tones  you  prefer,  that 
will  resist  sunlight,  rain,  boiling  water,  and  any  hard  knocks 
the  children  or  moving  men  may  deliver.  All  that  you  will 
need  to  keep  this  finish  looking  like  new  is  a  dustcloth. 

When  you  enter  a  bedroom  and  close  the  door,  you  will 
find  that  the  noise  from  the  living  room  stays  outside.  Spa- 
cious closets  (already  fitted  with  shelves,  chests,  and  drawers) 
which  form  partitions  between  the  rooms  will  make  the  house 
almost  soundproof.  The  wall  panels  are  also  packed  with  an 
insulating  material  that  swallows  up  sound. 

The  War  Set  the  Pace 

Does  this  story  seem  fantastic?  A  good  many  sound  busi- 
nessmen think  it  is  not,  although  there  is  undeniably  consider- 
able controversy  as  to  just  how  soon  such  a  picture  will  be 
an  actuality. 

More  than  fifty  companies  are  now  engaged  in  the  manu- 
facture of  prefabricated  houses.  Some  of  these  houses  are 
being  shipped  to  the  war  fronts  to  be  used  for  hospital  units, 
executive  quarters,  and  barracks.  Some  are  being  rushed  to 
our  own  crowded  industrial  centers  where  the  housing  short- 
age for  war  workers  grows  daily  more  acute.  Later,  at  the 
close  of  the  war,  a  large  percentage  will  be  sent  abroad  and 


14  Miracles  Ahead! 

used  in  the  devastated  areas  of  Europe,  Russia,  and  the  Far 
East.  At  this  time  the  prefabricated  house  will  become  avail- 
able to  private  individuals  too. 

You  will  get  the  benefits  of  this  manufacturing  experience, 
these  opportunities  for  checking  and  testing  the  new  type  of 
dwelling,  and  you  will  also  get  the  use  of  the  marvelous  new 
lightweight,  resilient,  powerful  materials,  developed  for  build- 
ing planes,  tanks,  and  battleships,  that  will  later  be  adapted  to 
peacetime  uses.  Your  new  home  will  be  as  strong  as  the  ancient 
castle  that  was  built  with  walls  four  feet  thick!  Most  impor- 
tant, it  will  be  planned  and  designed  by  America's  best  engi- 
neering brains. 

As  Bror  Dahlberg,  president  of  the  Celotex  Corporation, 
revealed,  "We  have  learned  more  about  building  houses  in 
the  past  two  years  or  so  than  we  learned  in  the  preceding  two 
decades.  We  have  been  forced  to  develop  new  materials  and 
adopt  new  methods  of  construction  because  accustomed  ma- 
terials have  been  impossible  to  get  and  the  old  methods  of 
construction  were  too  slow." 

As  a  result  of  the  "know  how"  gained  in  war  production, 
many  newcomers  will  enter  the  prefabricated-housing  field 
when  the  war  ends.  Certain  auto  companies  already  are  in  the 
household-equipment  field.  Chrysler  makes  Air-Temp  air- 
conditioning  units.  General  Motors  produces  Frigidaires. 
Nash  turns  out  Kelvinator  products.  The  aviation  industry's 
experience  in  the  manufacture  of  panels  for  airplanes  should 
permit  it  to  step  easily  into  prefabricated-housing  manufac- 
ture. Shipyards  also  have  the  equipment  and  the  trained  men 
needed  to  handle  machine-made  houses.  They  might  build 
houses  in  sections  as  the  TVA  engineers  are  doing.  The  TVA 
house  is  sliced  into  four  three-ton  sections.  Each  section  is  a 
complete  vertical  slice  of  the  house.  Everything  is  in  place 
and  ready  to  function  when  the  house  is  put  together.  Tracks 
are  laid  on  the  foundation  and  pulley  wheels  under  each  sec- 


A  Castle  for  Every  Man  15 

tion  expedite  the  assembling.  When  the  sections  are  properly 
lined  up,  tie  rods  are  bolted  together — and  the  house  is 
launched. 

Walter  Dorwin  Teague,  industrial  designer  and  architect, 
says,  "We  have  only  to  apply  to  home-building  the  same 
techniques  of  design,  manufacture  and  selling  that  have  given 
us  a  motor  car  for  every  four  people  in  the  land.  Long  expe- 
rience with  many  of  the  largest  mass-production  industries 
has  enabled  me  to  design  a  house  especially  adapted  to  as- 
sembly-line methods  of  manufacture.  The  result  is  a  house  of 
charm  and  comfort  which  can  surround  you  with  conven- 
iences amounting  to  luxury." 

"Ah,  but  how  about  the  cost  of  this  modern  home?"  you 
may  wonder. 

Mr.  Teague's  answer  is,  "When  a  big  manufacturer  gets 
into  mass-production,  the  cost  of  this  house  to  you,  delivered 
and  erected  on  your  prepared  site,  will  be  somewhere  between 
$1,000  and  $2,000." 

Standardization? 

Yes,  the  engineers  and  architects  know  how  much  you  dis- 
like standardization — and  especially  in  connection  with  homes. 
They  have  worked  out  solutions  for  this  dilemma  too.  The 
Norman  Bel  Geddes  house,  for  example,  has  twenty-seven 
units.  Each  of  these  can  be  switched  around  like  a  set  of 
building  blocks,  to  form  eleven  different  types  of  homes.  If 
your  lot  has  one  outlook  or  exposure  that  is  preferable  to 
others,  your  house  can  be  assembled  as  a  long  building  with 
the  important  rooms  and  windows  facing  in  that  direction. 
Identical  houses  on  adjacent  lots  will  look  entirely  different 
if  turned  in  other  directions  or  assembled  in  other  ways.  Pre- 
fabricated houses  have  such  novel  features  as  movable  walls 
that  open  a  side  of  the  house  to  the  garden  and  that  change 


1 6  Miracles  Ahead! 

the  size  and  shape  of  the  rooms  to  provide  extra  space  or  tem- 
porary sleeping  quarters  for  an  overnight  guest.  As  Mr. 
Teague  prophesies,  "Your  home  of  the  future  will  probably 
look  far  less  like  your  neighbor's  than  the  one  you  live  in 


now." 


The  Circular  House 

Henry  Kaiser,  the  West-coast  shipbuilder  who  broke  all 
records  by  using  prefabricated  parts  and  assembly-line  meth- 
ods in  his  shipyards,  has  announced  his  intention  to  enter  the 
prefabricated-housing  industry  when  the  war  is  over.  Kaiser 
has  retained  the  services  of  R.  Buckminster  Fuller,  who  has 
designed  probably  the  most  startling  home  of  the  future. 

Here  is  Fuller's  description  of  this  home: 

"Suppose  you  have  bought  or  rented  a  building  lot  and 
have  ordered  one  of  these  homes.  The  next  morning  a  truck 
arrives  and  workmen  begin  unloading  a  lot  of  strange  metal 
sheets  and  parts.  Many  of  them  look  like  giant  flower  petals. 
Others  are  large  curved  panels  of  corrugated  metal.  You  no- 
tice flooring  sections,  bathroom  and  kitchen  appliances,  and  a 
very  small  heating  plant.  And  you  see  a  structural  steel  con- 
trivance that  looks  like  a  tall  mast.  It  is,  and  it  is  used  to  sup- 
port the  house  while  it  is  being  erected.  For  this  house  is  built 
from  the  top  down,  and  laying  the  foundation  is  one  of  the 
last  things  to  be  done! 

"The  mast  is  placed  at  the  exact  center  of  your  house-to- 
be,  and  is  anchored  with  guy  wires  so  that  it  is  firm  as  a  rock. 
This  takes  only  a  few  minutes.  On  the  ground  surrounding 
the  mast,  the  petal-shaped  metal  sections  are  bolted  together 
to  form  a  round,  domed  roof  with  a  hole  in  the  center  through 
which  the  mast  projects.  The  completed  roof  is  hoisted  up 
the  mast  a  few  feet  by  a  one-man  winch,  and  curved  wall 
panels  are  bolted  on  so  that  they  hang  from  the  roof.  This 


A  Castle  for  Every  Man  17 

process  is  repeated  until  the  wall  reaches  its  full  height  of 
nearly  eight  feet. 

"Then  the  foundation  is  laid — a  circle  of  bricks  flat  on  the 
ground  right  under  the  circular  wall.  The  house  is  now  low- 
ered so  that  the  wall  rests  on  the  bricks,  and  the  mast  is  then 
removed.  A  water-  and  bug-tight  sectional  steel  floor  is  bolted 
to  the  lower  rim  of  the  wall,  and  all  that  remains  is  to  install 
the  sections  of  finished  flooring,  the  lining,  interior  equip- 
ment, appliances  and  fixtures.  The  entire  operation,  from 
placing  the  mast  to  unloading  your  furniture  from  the  moving 
van,  takes  only  a  few  hours." 

The  steel  sections  of  this  house  are  enormously  strong  but 
very  light.  The  entire  house  weighs  little  more  than  two  tons 
— less  than  twice  as  much  as  your  automobile.  The  house  is 
round  and  there  are  two  of  these  sections  right  against  each 
other,  a  large  and  a  small  one.  But  Fuller  says  you'd  get  used 
to  this.  When  you  are  in  the  spacious  living  room,  he  explains, 
you  are  hardly  aware  that  it  is  round.  A  regular  studio  bed 
fits  snugly  against  the  wall.  This  is  because  the  house  is  twenty 
feet  in  diameter,  and  a  curve  so  large  seems  hardly  to  curve 
at  all  when  you  get  close  to  it. 

Buy  Your  Home — Rent  Your  Land 

One  of  the  developments  certain  to  materialize  with  wide- 
spread use  of  prefabricated  houses  is  the  practice  of  renting 
land  and  moving  the  home  from  site  to  site  according  to  the 
needs  of  the  family.  When  the  children  are  of  school  age  the 
family  would  live  in  a  district  near  a  good  school,  paying  a 
somewhat  higher  rent  for  their  land  in  order  to  obtain  the  best 
school  privileges.  Later,  when  the  children  go  off  to  college, 
the  house  could  be  moved  to  an  area  where  the  rent  was 
lower.  Renting  land  has  been  the  custom  for  many  years  in 
some  cities. 


1 8  Miracles  Ahead! 

"Why  be  tied  to  one  place  when  your  job  or  jobs  may  take 
you  to  different  parts  of  the  country?"  asks  architect  Cass 
Gilbert,  Jr.  "Why  own  a  lot  and  house  you  don't  live  in,  and 
live  in  a  house  you  don't  own?  Why  not  own  a  home  you  like 
that  is  different  from  your  neighbor's,  and  rent  the  lot  at  the 
land  rent  only?  In  this  way,  you  could  buy  the  house  on  a 
credit-rent  plan,  rent  the  lot,  own  your  home — and  move  it 
to  your  job." 

Gilbert's  answer  is  the  Plank  Panel  house.  Here  is  how  it 
is  built: 

"Random  width  planks  of  dry,  suitable  lumber  two  inches 
thick  and  eight,  ten  or  twelve  feet  long  are  run  through  ma- 
chines that  double  tongue  and  groove  the  edges  and  rout  out 
the  ends.  By  modern  methods  of  assembly,  with  modern  glues, 
these  planks  are  made  into  strong,  solid  panels  four  feet  wide 
and  eight,  ten  or  twelve  feet  long.  Each  panel  represents  a 
four-foot  width  of  wall  or  a  four-foot  width  of  floor.  They 
are  the  'building  blocks'  out  of  which  the  house  is  constructed. 

"Provision  is  made  within  the  body  of  each  panel  for  inter- 
nal metal  rods  to  run  horizontally  through  the  wall  at  top 
and  bottom,  and  also  vertically  at  regular  intervals.  The  rods 
pull  all  members  together — roof,  walls  and  floor — as  tightly 
as  bolts  can  hold  wood.  Window  and  door  panels  are  manu- 
factured the  same  way,  are  self-contained,  and  are  an  equally 
strong  part  of  the  structure. 

"This  then  becomes  a  wall  two  inches  thick  that  has  been 
solidly  pulled  together  by  steel  rods  to  steel  corner  members. 
These  panels  are  so  weather-tight  that  five  of  them  could  be 
bolted  together  by  the  same  method  to  form  a  water  tank. 
For  each  plank  is  not  only  double  tongued  and  grooved,  but 
is  glued  tightly  to  its  neighbor  with  modern,  waterproof  glue. 

"With  this  house  you  can  have  exactly  the  style  and  appear- 
ance you  wish.  You  also  get  a  home  which  you  can  add  to. 
Undo  the  corner  bolts,  add  extension  rods  and  a  few  panels, 


A  Castle  for  Every  Man  19 

and  you  have  an  extra  bedroom.  If  you  have  an  unmarried 
son  or  daughter,  build  their  rooms  with  extension  rods  so 
that  when  they  marry  they  can  take  their  rooms  with  them. 
"The  Plank  Panels  can  be  produced  by  any  well  equipped 
lumber  mill.  Under  normal  conditions  the  materials  necessary 
are  available  locally  in  every  community.  And  local  workmen 
can  erect  the  house  according  to  a  design  that  fits  your  needs, 
your  taste,  and  your  pocketbook." 

Tradition  Takes  a  Back  Seat 

For  a  great  many  generations  it  has  been  customary  for  a 
man  to  choose  a  house  in  which  to  live  that  resembled  some 
style  of  house  used  extensively  in  some  earlier  period.  He 
might  ask  the  architect  to  modify  the  interior  according  to  his 
personal  needs  and  wishes.  But  these  changes  were  usually 
minor  ones.  The  whole  process  of  making  this  selection  of  a 
home  was  based  upon  the  assumption  that  the  exterior  must 
conform  to  a  certain  style  and  if  any  comfort  at  all  were 
feasible  on  the  inside,  why,  that  was  fine,  but  if  not,  the  man 
and  his  family  would  adjust  themselves  to  the  house  as  grace- 
fully as  possible. 

"Except  for  moving  the  bathroom  inside,  improving  kitchen 
equipment  and  heating  and  lighting  systems,  our  houses  are 
much  the  same  as  they  were  hundreds  of  years  ago,"  declared 
George  Fred  Keck,  a  disciple  of  the  school  of  modern  Ameri- 
can architecture  founded  fifty  years  ago  in  Chicago  by  Louis 
Sullivan  and  Frank  Lloyd  Wright. 

"Our  houses  have  little  checkerboards  of  glass  for  windows, 
because  our  forefathers  couldn't  buy  a  big  piece  of  glass.  Even 
though  we  now  can  have  a  whole  wall  of  glass  we  don't  be- 
cause architects  and  builders  have  preferred  to  copy  the  old 
rather  than  create  the  new. 

"Automobile  makers,"  he  points  out,  "weren't  satisfied  to 


20  Miracles  Ahead! 

go  along  copying  the  wagon.  They  produced  an  entirely  new 
type  vehicle.  Why  shouldn't  we  architects  do  the  same  in- 
stead of  copying  French  chateaux,  Spanish  villas  or  ante- 
bellum mansions?" 

Mr.  Keck  believes  that  houses  should  be  designed  to  afford 
a  maximum  of  comfort  and  convenience.  In  planning  his 
houses  he  uses  the  sun's  rays  to  aid  in  heating  them.  Thus  the 
south  wall  of  the  house  is  made  chiefly  of  glass.  A  wide  flat 
roof  overhangs  the  edge  of  the  building  to  shade  the  glass 
wall. 

"The  object  here,"  he  explains,  "is  to  shut  out  the  intensely 
hot  summer  sun,  as  with  an  awning;  and  when  the  sun  is  low 
on  the  horizon  in  the  winter,  to  admit  the  winter  sun.  In  this 
manner  one  takes  advantage  of  the  sun  in  the  wintertime  when 
it  is  desirable  to  have  the  sun  heat,  and  controls  the  hot  sum- 
mer sun.  Such  an  arrangement  will  help  heat  the  house  in 
winter  and  keep  it  cooler  in  summer,  and  will  make  all 
the  rooms  in  the  house  very  pleasant  places  to  be  at  any 


time." 


This  house  is  basementless  with  panel  floor  heat,  which 
means  that  the  floor  is  a  moderately  warm  radiator  which 
heats  the  house.  Panel  floor  heat  keeps  the  feet  warm,  and 
children  rolling  and  playing  on  the  floor  will  not  be  cold.  In 
the  coldest  weather  the  floor  can  be  kept  at  80  to  90  degrees 
Fahrenheit  and  can  provide  comfortable  room  temperature. 

The  northern  side  of  the  house  is  almost  a  solid  wall  to 
provide  utmost  insulation  against  the  wind  and  cold  of  win- 
ter. The  projecting  eave  lines  of  the  roof  prevent  blowing 
rains  from  entering  any  openings  in  the  house. 

The  roof  is  flat,  and  strong  enough  to  carry  a  thin  sheet  of 
water  for  summer  cooling.  The  sun's  rays  cool  the  house  by 
evaporation,  just  as  they  cool  a  swimmer  in  a  wet  bathing 
suit.  This  idea  is  an  application  of  one  used  by  the  ancient 


A  Castle  for  Every  Man  21 

Egyptians.  They  covered  their  roofs  with  a  layer  of  wool  and 
had  slaves  douse  them  with  water  in  the  hot  sunshine. 

Before  designing  any  home,  Keck  carefully  studies  the 
particular  requirements  and  habits  of  the  occupants.  A  Mis- 
souri college  professor  liked  to  give  large  teas.  Yet  the  family 
itself  was  small  and  normally  required  no  large  living  room. 
Keck  arranged  the  living,  dining,  and  recreation  rooms,  all  of 
modest  size,  in  such  a  way  that  through  the  use  of  sliding 
walls  the  three  rooms  could  be  converted  into  one  immense 
living  room. 

Keck  believes  that  the  rooms  of  a  house  should  be  arranged 
so  that  it  can  grow  and  adapt  itself  to  the  family's  changing 
needs.  The  infants'  nursery  grows  into  the  playroom  of  the 
grade-school  boy  and  girl;  then  into  the  recreation  room  of 
the  high-school  youth;  then  into  the  private  apartment  of 
the  young  married  couple,  who  may  lack  the  finances  to  sup- 
port a  separate  home;  and  finally  into  the  suite  for  Grandpa 
and  Grandma  when  the  son  and  his  bride  have  begun  to  rear 
a  family  and  need  more  of  the  house. 

"This  sort  of  home,"  Keck  says,  "would  preserve  the  dis- 
tinct family  units.  It  takes  into  consideration  the  changes  that 
develop  in  a  family  through  a  lifetime.  It  combines  structural 
permanence  with  perfect  adaptability." 

Trading  in  Your  Old  Rooms 

Paul  Nelson,  an  architect  who  has  won  fame  throughout 
Europe  and  America,  believes  a  new  and  more  flexible  design 
is  needed  for  the  prefabricated  house.  He  envisions  a  house 
made  up  of  two  distinct  elements — an  exterior  shell  forming 
an  enclosed  space,  and  the  prefabricated  unit  rooms  which  are 
grouped  independently  within. 

"There  would  be  rooms  adapted  to  the  needs  of  cooking, 


22  Miracles  Ahead! 

sleeping,  washing  and  leisure.  There  could  be  rooms  for  hob- 
bies, and  special  acoustical  rooms  for  radio  and  television," 
he  explains. 

"The  same  evolution  would  surely  occur  with  mass-pro- 
duced rooms  that  occurred  with  the  automobile.  There  would 
be  the  possibility  of  buying  and  selling  second-hand  rooms. 
This  would  bring  these  superior  living  units  within  the  reach 
of  even  the  lowest  income  groups. 

"Similar  rooms,  called  'roomettes/  are  now  made  for  Pull- 
man cars,  their  major  elements  stamped  out  by  machine  and 
quickly  assembled  into  complete  units.  It  is  only  a  short  step 
from  this  to  the  mass  production  of  rooms  for  your  own 
home. 

"A  truck  could  back  up  to  your  house  and  a  complete 
sleeping  room,  bathing  room,  cooking  room  or  eating  room, 
for  example,  could  be  unloaded  and  set  in  place.  The  process 
would  be  almost  as  simple  as  plugging  in  the  flexible  copper 
connections  of  your  present  refrigerator  or  washing  machine. 
With  the  most  essential  rooms  installed,  your  home  would  be 
ready  for  living.  Then  you  could  plan  for  additional  rooms  to 
add  extra  pleasure  and  convenience  to  life.  At  your  photo- 
graphic dealer's  you  could  select  a  dark  room.  You  could  find 
a  special  music  room  at  your  department  or  music  store.  If 
additional  nursery  or  sleeping  space  were  needed,  the  required 
rooms  could  be  quickly  installed.  If  the  family  became  smaller, 
rooms  no  longer  necessary  could  be  sold,  or  'traded  in'  on 
rooms  for  hobbies  or  whatever  you  might  wish. 

"By  creating  the  home  in  contrast  to  the  house,  by  provid- 
ing greater  living  convenience,  comfort  and  enjoyment,  by 
freeing  the  individual  for  richer  cultural  development,  and 
by  doing  these  things  in  a  way  which  brings  them  down 
within  reach  of  millions — this  conception  could  provide  bet- 
ter living  for  the  present  generation." 


A  Castle  for  Every  Man  23 

The  Apartments  of  Tomorrow 

What  about  the  more  than  13  per  cent  of  American  fami- 
lies (about  4,000,000  out  of  30,000,000)  who  live  in  apart- 
ments and  may  continue  to  do  so?  Architects  and  designers 
have  not  forgotten  them.  Apartments  of  tomorrow  will  pro- 
vide more  comfort  and  living  space  than  ever  before. 

Elisabeth  Coit,  who  is  one  of  the  few  woman  members  of 
the  American  Institute  of  Architects,  spent  two  years  study- 
ing the  good  and  bad  in  housing,  and  talking  to  tenants  in 
low-cost  apartments.  She  has  given  fellow  architects  a  lot  of 
excellent  firsthand  information  on  apartments  from  the  ten- 
ant's viewpoint. 

She  pointed  out  that  the  trend  in  apartments  is  toward 
larger  rooms.  One  survey  showed  that  apartments  with  an 
average  room  area  of  168  square  feet  proved  very  satisfactory, 
while  one  with  an  average  of  113  square  feet  was  hard  to 
rent. 

"This  to  me,"  she  said,  "is  a  healthy  development.  I  always 
urge  clients  to  think  of  rooms  not  as  boxes  but  as  spaces  for 
certain  uses.  A  large  space  is  easier  to  adapt  to  several  pur- 
poses than  a  tiny  one. 

"But  let's  see,"  she  added,  "how  average  families  use  their 
homes,  and  whether  the  apartments  are  designed  with  such 
use  in  view.  Families  in  small  quarters,  for  example,  need 
living  rooms  for  callers,  meals,  quiet  relaxation  or  emergency 
bedrooms.  Yet  most  living  rooms  are  chiefly  runways  for  en- 
trance to  other  rooms.  They  afford  neither  quiet  nor  privacy. 

"A  living  room  should  be  planned  so  you  can  shut  it  off 
from  other  rooms  when  you  want  to.  It  should  have  a  closet; 
and  be  separated  from  the  kitchen.  In  fact,  the  living  room 
might  lend  some  space  to  the  bedrooms.  Rooms  designed  only 
for  sleeping  are  a  waste,  for  they  are  used  only  a  few  hours." 


24  Miracles  Ahead! 

Miss  Coit  would  rename  bedrooms  "parents'  room"  and 
"children's  room,"  and  give  them  twenty-four  hour  useful- 
ness. If  Mother  sews,  there  would  be  room  for  a  machine. 
Boys  need  a  place  for  gadgets.  And  the  girl  deserves  room  for 
a  dressing  table,  and  a  desk  and  comfortable  chair.  The  bed- 
rooms could  have  some  shelves  and  a  few  trays  built  into  clos- 
ets. This  would  eliminate  the  dressers,  and  you'd  have  more 
space  and  less  furniture  to  dust  under.  Furthermore,  built-in 
bunks  are  excellent  for  a  boys'  or  a  girls'  room. 

Design  Your  Oivn  Apartment 

Walter  B.  Sanders  of  Research  and  Planning  Associates, 
New  York  City,  has  designed  an  apartment  house  of  tomor- 
row that  is  similar  to  Paul  Nelson's  plan  for  a  house  made  up 
of  two  distinct  elements — the  exterior  shell  and  the  prefabri- 
cated unit  rooms. 

Sanders  suggests  that  apartment  structures  might  be  de- 
signed along  the  lines  of  loft  buildings,  consisting  of  just 
floors  and  ceilings.  Space  could  be  rented  by  the  square  foot, 
and  the  amount  of  standardized  equipment  could  be  left  to 
the  needs  and  means  of  the  tenants. 

"Imagine  renting  an  apartment  on  the  basis  of  the  space 
needed,"  explained  Sanders,  "with  exposures,  amount  and 
placement  of  windows,  size,  number  and  purpose  of  rooms 
and  closets  left  to  your  own  choice!  The  potential  market  for 
apartment  owners  would  be  vastly  increased;  strained  land- 
lord-tenant relationship  greatly  improved." 

The  apartment  building  could  consist  of  two  distinct  ele- 
ments. First  there  would  be  the  structural  frame,  including 
floors  and  ceilings.  Within  this  would  be  created  the  individ- 
ual apartments  using  mass-produced,  standardized  wall  and 
partition  units.  The  necessary  electric  conduits,  water-supply 
and  drainage  mains,  would  be  in  place  and  there  would  be 


A  Castle  for  Every  Man  25 

fittings  at  each  floor  level  to  allow  connections  to  individual 
apartments. 

You  could  step  into  your  rented  space  and  then  arrange 
your  apartment  to  suit  yourself.  The  outside  walls  could  be 
clear,  translucent,  or  insulated  opaque  units.  You  could  move 
them  inward  in  the  summer  to  form  private  outdoor  terraces 
and  to  shade  the  interior  from  the  sun's  rays.  In  the  winter 
you  could  move  the  walls  forward  to  permit  maximum  sun- 
light to  enter  your  apartment. 

The  exterior  wall  sections  would  be  part  of  the  building 
assembly.  But  the  partition  sections  could  be  either  purchased 
or  rented  from  the  owner.  Closet  and  wardrobe  units,  ob- 
tained the  same  way,  could  be  used  as  partitions  to  divide  the 
space  in  your  apartment.  These  easily  arranged,  prefabricated 
units  would  give  your  apartment  great  flexibility.  It  could 
be  altered  as  family  conditions,  or  your  moods,  changed. 
That  "ole  devil"  standardization  would  not  bother  you. 

Finished  floorings  also  would  come  in  sections  that  could 
be  quickly  put  down.  The  plumbing  fixtures,  bathtub,  toilet, 
lavatory,  kitchen  sink,  and  other  units  might  be  either  rented 
or  owned  like  your  furniture. 

"The  tenant's  investment  in  parts  purchased  by  him,"  ex- 
plains Sanders,  "would  always  have  a  trade-in  value,  just  as 
with  vacuum  cleaners,  refrigerators  and  radios.  If  necessary 
for  any  reason  to  move  to  another  location,  similar  apartments 
could  accommodate  the  parts  you  owned.  And  if  moving  into 
a  home  instead  of  an  apartment,  the  incorporation  of  this 
equipment  would  absorb  in  long-term  buying  some  of  the 
financial  shock  of  home  building  and  ownership." 

Sanders  likewise  points  out  that  owners,  as  well  as  tenants, 
would  share  the  benefits  of  the  new  apartments  of  tomor- 
row: 

"The  initial  building  investment  would  be  minimized,  since 
the  purchase  of  the  standardized  parts  would  be  according  to 


26  Miracles  Ahead! 

tenants'  demands.  Demountability  of  the  structure  would  per- 
mit either  renting  or  buying  the  land  for  assembly  of  the 
unit.  The  perennial  5  per  cent  allowance  for  vacancies  would 
be  decreased  because  available  space  could  be  transformed  to 
meet  the  market.  Replacement  of  obsolete  equipment  would 
be  facilitated  since  it  would  be  independent  of  the  structure. 
The  demountability  and  rented-land  features  could  combat 
the  tendency  toward  obsolescence  due  to  crowding,  deterio- 
ration of  surroundings,  or  moving  of  production  centers. 
With  costs  written  off  over  a  definite  but  different  period  of 
time  for  the  structural  frame,  the  equipment,  the  walls  and 
partition  sections,  etc.,  depreciation  rates  could  be  determined 
more  accurately,  replacements  facilitated,  and  the  obsoles- 
cence of  the  entire  building  could  be  reduced  due  to  the 
obsolescence  of  only  a  few  of  its  parts." 

Problems  Ahead 

Warborn  advances  in  building  materials  and  construction 
methods  will  make  possible  a  prefabricated  home  priced 
within  reach  of  the  average  family.  But,  first,  the  war  must  be 
won  so  that  our  resources  again  will  be  available  for  home 
building.  Second,  the  pressure  of  public  demand  for  prefab- 
ricated homes  must  be  strong  enough  to  sweep  away  the  old, 
out-of-date  technique  of  building  homes.  These  new  homes 
cannot  be  built  only  one  at  a  time.  Standardization  of  parts 
and  quantity  production  are  needed  to  produce  low-cost  but 
well-built  homes  for  millions  of  average  families.  If  the  build- 
ing industry  can  be  sure  of  a  public  demand  for  these  houses, 
you  can  be  sure  that  they  will  be  produced.  Mass  production 
plus  mass  demand  developed  our  great  automobile  industry 
and  several  others.  It  can  also  revolutionize  the  building 
industry. 

A  word  of  warning  is  voiced,  however,  by  Arthur  C. 


A  Castle  for  Every  Man  27 

Holden,  prominent  architect  and  a  Fellow  of  the  American 
Institute  of  Architects: 

"Even  a  willing  public  will  fail  to  get  the  benefit  of  the 
improvements  that  may  be  possible  [in  home  construction] 
if  it  is  ignorant  and  complacent.  In  all  of  our  large  cities  and 
many  of  our  small  towns,  laws  have  been  passed  to  protect  the 
public  safety  and  health  against  abuses  in  the  design  and  con- 
struction of  buildings.  But  suppose  a  well-meaning  building 
code  reads  something  like  this:  'All  exterior  walls  shall  be  a 
rninimum  of  8"  of  masonry  construction.  .  .  .  All  interior 
wall  surfaces,  except  where  panelled  in  wood,  shall  be  of  plas- 
ter or  tile.  .  .  .  All  floors  in  bathrooms  shall  be  of  approved 
masonry  construction.'  These  are  phrases  taken  out  of  typical 
building  codes;  they  have  the  effect  of  preventing  innovations 
and  improvements  within  the  limits  which  are  'protected'  by 
such  restrictive  codes." 

In  order  to  economize  particularly  in  plumbing  materials, 
the  Federal  Government  drew  up  a  compromise  building 
code,  which  many  cities  and  towns  agreed  to  follow  during 
the  war  emergency.  But  they  may  return  to  more  restrictive 
codes  when  the  war  ends,  unless  the  public  demands  a  realis- 
tic policy  toward  prefabricated  building  materials. 

In  its  1943  report  on  a  postwar  economic  program  and 
social  security  plans,  the  National  Resources  Planning  Board 
urged  the  modernization  of  building  codes  and  recognition 
of  the  value  of  modern  refinements  and  improvements  in  con- 
struction materials  and  methods. 

There  is  danger  likewise  that  life-insurance  companies, 
savings  banks,  and  building  and  loan  associations  that  lend 
money  on  mortgages  may  be  allergic  to  machine-made  houses. 
These  institutions  naturally  seek  to  guard  their  investments 
by  turning  thumbs  down  on  the  use  of  building  materials  that 
have  not  been  thoroughly  tested.  But  this  caution  must  not  be 
permitted  to  block  the  use  of  the  excellent  new  materials 


28  Miracles  Ahead! 

(light  metals,  plywood,  plastics,  etc.)  which  have  been  devel- 
oped in  the  past  two  years. 

The  premium  payers  and  depositors  in  lending  institutions, 
who  also  happen  to  be  among  those  who  will  benefit  from 
low-cost,  prefabricated  houses,  should  insist  that  these  insti- 
tutions keep  an  open  mind  on  the  subject  of  prefabrication. 

There'll  be  some  amazing  changes  made  in  the  postwar 
world.  But  changes  in  homes  will  affect  the  largest  number  of 
people  in  their  everyday  lives — if  prefabrication  is  given  the 
proper  environment. 


HI 

LITTLE   MIRACLES 

"WHY  CAN'T  OUR  HOMES  be  as  comfortable  as  the  dustless, 
draftless,  air-conditioned,  soundproofed,  and  almost  perfectly 
lighted  war  plants  now  in  operation?"  some  of  us  have  been 
wondering. 

Despite  our  twentieth-century  realism  and  scientific  ad- 
vances, the  average  home  possesses  few  comforts.  Suffocat- 
ingly hot  in  summer,  drafty  and  unevenly  heated  in  winter, 
badly  lighted  at  all  seasons,  cluttered  with  too  much  furni- 
ture and  equipped  with  old-fashioned  appliances  that  function 
poorly  or  not  at  all,  our  homes  reflect  few  of  the  engineering 
and  designing  achievements  of  our  generation.  Our  ten-year 
depression  and  the  exigencies  of  a  wartime  era  were  chiefly 
responsible  for  this  lag.  But  the  necessity  of  maintaining  high 
employment  levels  after  the  war  may  bring  about  the  mass 
production  of  many  household  appliances  and  devices  that  we 
now  regard  as  luxuries.  In  this  case  we  shall  be  able  to  purchase 
for  modest  sums  many  important  aids  to  better  living. 

Modern  Lighting  Equipment 

Perhaps  no  improvement  would  mean  more  to  most  of  us 
than  better  light  at  home.  Chronic  eyestrain  plagues  millions 
of  Americans.  This  problem  cannot  be  solved  by  increasing 
the  concentrated  light  supplied  by  floor  and  table  lamps.  The 
contrast  with  the  dark  room  beyond  the  circle  of  bright  light 
would  merely  aggravate  the  condition.  The  whole  room 
should  be  brightened  up  by  a  combination  of  fluorescent  and 

29 


30  Miracles  Ahead! 

incandescent  lamps  mounted  in  a  cove  near  the  ceiling.  Light- 
ing could  be  automatic  and  governed  by  electric  "eyes"  sensi- 
tive to  outside  variations  in  the  daylight. 

Because  they  produce  a  rich  glowing  light  that  is  cool, 
fluorescent  lamps  should  be  used  on  desks  and  tables.  They 
are  more  efficient  and  cost  less  to  operate  than  the  incandes- 
cent lamp.  The  fluorescent  lamp  consists  of  a  long  thin  glass 
tube  containing  mercury.  It  is  coated  on  the  inside  with  a 
substance  (phosphors)  that  fluoresces,  or  gives  off  light  when 
exposed  to  ultraviolet  radiations.  The  light  from  the  fluores- 
cent lamp  is  nearly  as  white  as  daylight.  You  can't  see  ultra- 
violet rays,  but  you  can  observe  their  handiwork.  One  type 
of  ultraviolet  radiation  from  the  sun  produces  sunburn.  These 
rays  also  help  your  body  to  produce  Vitamin  D. 

If  the  coating  of  phospors  is  not  put  on  the  fluorescent 
lamp  and  a  special  glass  is  used  for  the  tube,  it  then  gives  off 
powerful  germ-killing  ultraviolet  rays  which  will  keep  your 
home  free  of  harmful  bacteria. 


"Laundering"  the  Air 

In  the  future  your  air-conditioning  unit  will  also  include  a 
Precipitron  to  eliminate  dust  from  your  home.  This  device  for 
"laundering"  the  air  was  invented  in  1934  by  Gaylord  W. 
Penney  of  the  Westinghouse  Research  Laboratories.  It  con- 
sists of  tungsten  wires  and  steel  plates  through  which  the  air 
is  drawn.  The  wires  positively  charge  the  dust  particles,  which 
pass  on  and  stick  to  the  negatively  charged  steel  plates  just  as 
iron  fillings  are  drawn  to  a  magnet. 

Penney  reported  that  the  Precipitron  installed  in  his  Pitts- 
burgh home  added  only  sixty  cents  to  one  dollar  to  his 
monthly  light  bill.  He  expected  the  cost  of  operation  to  be 
lowered  by  the  development  of  more  efficient  equipment. 

The  curtains  in  Mr.  Penney's  Precipitron-equipped  home 


Little  Miracles  31 

stay  clean  for  eight  or  ten  weeks.  But  in  pre-Precipitron  days 
the  curtains  had  to  be  laundered  every  two  or  three  weeks. 
Walls  that  had  to  be  washed  every  spring  now  stay  clean  for 
three  years  or  more.  This  means  that  paint  will  last  longer,  and 
the  savings  in  laundry  and  dry-cleaning  bills  also  add  up  to 
quite  a  sum. 

However,  the  air  leakage  into  the  average  house  is  far 
greater  than  most  of  us  realize.  Penney  says  that  the  air  in 
most  houses  will  be  changed  from  one  to  two  times  per  hour 
due  to  normal  leakage  around  doors,  windows,  flooring.  This 
will  limit  the  efficiency  of  the  Precipitron  and  any  air-condi- 
tioning unit.  But  the  performance  of  Penney 's  "air  laundry" 
in  Pittsburgh's  famous  smog  (smoke  plus  fog)  proves  that  it 
is  more  than  just  another  interesting  gadget.  After  the  war  it 
is  possible  that  Precipitrons  may  cost  little  if  any  more  than 
electric  refrigerators.  Westinghouse  has  already  made  a  unit 
that  sells  for  three  hundred  dollars,  and  one  hundred  and  fifty 
of  them  have  been  installed  in  private  homes.  The  company 
reports  that,  with  large-scale  distribution  later  on,  the  price 
will  be  considerably  lowered. 

Smokeless  Furnaces 

Another  victory  over  city  dirt  (as  well  as  over  the  high 
cost  of  heating  homes)  has  been  won  by  Julian  R.  Fellows, 
professor  of  mechanical  engineering,  and  J.  C.  Miles,  asso- 
ciate, of  the  University  of  Illinois.  They  have  developed  a 
furnace  of  the  future  to  burn  soft  coal  without  filling  the  air 
with  smoke  or  soot. 

More  than  90  per  cent  of  all  the  smoke  produced  by  even 
the  most  volatile  of  soft  coals  is  consumed  by  the  furnace, 
which  makes  it  possible  to  reduce  fuel  consumption  by  as 
much  as  25  per  cent  and  to  use  cheaper  grades  of  coal.  Smoke 
is  forced  down  through  the  fire,  where  it  is  burned.  Only  the 


32  Miracles  Ahead! 

smokeless  burned  gases  escape  up  the  chimney.  Models  of 
the  furnace  (minus  smokestack)  have  been  operated  in  Ur- 
bana  and  Springfield,  Illinois,  hotel  lobbies  to  demonstrate 
their  smokeless  performance. 

Southern  Illinois  and  other  soft-coal  interests  hope  the  fur- 
nace will  help  them  regain  markets  lost  in  past  years  as  the 
result  of  antismoke  ordinances  in  many  cities,  including  once- 
smoky  St.  Louis.  Professor  Fellows  believes  his  furnace  will 
appeal  to  many  homeowners  who  cannot  afford  stokers  and 
yet  wish  low-cost,  smokeless  coal  heat. 

Soundproofing 

Noise  is  definitely  harmful  to  one's  nerves,  and  there  is  too 
much  of  it  in  the  average  home.  Sound-absorbing  material, 
which  traps  sound  in  thousands  of  small  holes  and  keeps  it 
from  bouncing  around  a  room,  should  be  used  extensively  in 
the  home  of  tomorrow.  There  is  no  reason  why  the  clatter 
from  the  kitchen,  or  the  uproar  of  the  playroom,  should  be 
allowed  to  invade  the  living  room.  And  a  telephone  nook,  or 
a  corner  for  reading  or  writing,  could  be  protected  from 
noises  in  other  parts  of  the  living  room — that  center  of  many 
activities  of  the  average  family.  The  new,  open-front  tele- 
phone booths  in  New  York  City's  Sixth  Avenue  Subway  are 
an  outstanding  example  of  effective  soundproofing.  A  person 
can  phone  even  while  a  train  is  rumbling  by. 

Proper  Acoustics 

The  Architectural  Forum  goes  another  step  forward  and 
says  that  acoustics  should  not  stop  at  the  mere  absorption  of 
a  sound.  "It  seems  likely,"  the  Forum  declares,  "that  the  de- 
signer of  the  house  of  the  future  will  have  to  be  as  much  con- 
cerned with  rooms  that  'sound'  and  'feel'  right  as  with  appear- 


Little  Miracles  33 

ance  and  convenience.  The  movie  industry,  for  instance,  has 
developed  small  rooms  for  screening  pictures  which  sound 
exactly  like  big  theatres.  Is  there  any  reason  why  the  room 
in  which  we  listen  to  the  radio  should  not  be  made  to  sound 
like  a  concert  hall  when  we  listen  to  'big'  music?  Modern 
rooms,  with  their  bare  walls  and  sparse  furniture,  often  sound 
hollow — like  an  empty  apartment — and  frequently  present 
other  annoying  acoustical  problems.  Most  of  these  faults  can 
be  obviated  by  nonparallel  walls,  sloping  ceiling  or  curved 
surfaces  if  the  designer  is  sufficiently  well  acquainted  with 
acoustical  correction." 


Radiant  Heating 

Engineers  tell  us  that  radiant  heating  will  chase  the  radiators 
or  hot-air  vents  out  of  the  home  of  the  future.  Radiant  heat- 
ing warms  the  walls,  or  floor  and  ceiling,  by  means  of  con- 
cealed hot-air  or  hot-water  pipes.  The  temperature  in  a 
radiant-heated  room  might  be  65  degrees  or  less,  but  you 
could  sit  around  in  your  shirt  sleeves  and  feel  comfortable. 
Sounds  like  "black  magic."  But  it  isn't. 

Physics  teachers  tell  us  of  a  law  which  says  that  a  warm 
body  always  loses  heat  to  a  cold  one.  Your  body  produces 
more  heat  than  it  needs,  and  you  must  get  rid  of  this  extra  heat 
to  be  comfortable.  You  feel  uncomfortably  warm  when  the 
body  has  difficulty  getting  rid  of  its  excess  heat,  and  cold 
when  it  loses  heat  too  fast.  If  the  walls  of  a  room  are  cold  you 
lose  heat  to  them  and  feel  chilly  even  though  the  air  in  the 
room  may  be  hot.  But  if  the  walls  around  you  are  heated  by 
steam  pipes  to  80  or  90  degrees  you  lose  very  little  heat  to 
them  and  feel  comfortably  warm  even  though  cold  air  may 
be  swirling  around  you. 

On  the  other  hand,  a  radiator  in  a  room  heats  the  air  in  one 
spot  and  depends  on  the  circulation  to  warm  the  whole  room. 


34  Miracles  Ahead! 

This  causes  drafts  and  the  room  temperature  is  never 
even. 

You  have  seen  movies  of  bathing  beauties  out  skiing  when 
the  temperature  was  below  freezing.  Were  they  running  the 
risk  of  getting  pneumonia?  No — radiant  heat  kept  them 
warm.  The  rays  of  the  sun,  which  were  reflected  from  the 
snow,  balanced  the  body  heat  lost  to  the  cold  air. 

Radiant  cooling  of  a  home  works  on  the  same  principle  as 
radiant  heating.  You  would  pump  air  or  cold  water  through 
pipes  and  let  your  body  radiate  heat  to  the  walls.  But  in  most 
climates  a  dehumidifier  would  be  needed  to  take  the  moisture 
out  of  the  air,  or  the  damp  air  would  condense  on  the  walls 
and  turn  them  into  miniature  waterfalls. 


Built-in  Furniture 

You'll  have  fewer  pieces  of  furniture  to  move  around  on 
house-cleaning  day  in  the  future  because  more  pieces  will  be 
built  into  the  house.  The  industrial  designer  Gilbert  Rohde 
believes  that  all  "wall  pieces" — chests,  cabinets,  anything  that 
now  remains  in  position  against  the  wall — will  be  built  in  as 
part  of  the  house. 

"The  building-in  of  furniture,"  he  explains,  "will  relieve  a 
family  of  bulky  possessions,  will  be  cheaper,  and  will  permit 
a  better  organization  of  space  because  the  furniture  will  be 
built  to  fit.  Large  sofas  may  also  be  built  in  with  radio  and 
radio-television  controls  in  the  arms." 

T.  H.  Robsjohn-Gibbings  looks  forward  to  the  day  of 
fewer  and  better  pieces  of  furniture.  He  feels  that  "man's 
psychological  fear  of  an  empty  space"  has  caused  him  to 
clutter  up  his  home  with  unnecessary  furniture.  He  contends 
that  the  first  part  of  our  adjustment  to  the  house  of  tomorrow 
must  be  to  overcome  this  instinct  to  fill  empty  spaces.  Then 


Little  Miracles  35 

all  the  furniture  which  is  placed  against  the  wall  for  the  sake 
of  filling  an  empty  space  will  be  eliminated. 

"All  the  money,"  he  concludes,  "which  we  have  spent  be- 
cause of  this  pathological  fear  will  then  be  available  for  the 
furniture  we  need  for  actual  use  in  our  rooms.  And  we  can 
concentrate  on  making  this  furniture  beautiful,  or  finer  qual- 
ity, and  available  to  all." 

Robsjohn-Gibbings  adds  the  prediction  that  the  men  in  the 
airplane  industry,  who  are  making  amazing  experiments  in 
wood  fabrication,  may  have  an  important  influence  on  the 
furniture  industry  of  the  future. 

Mass-Produced  Closets 

One  long-standing  complaint  of  housewives  has  been  the 
lack  of  good  storage  space.  They  want  more  coat  closets, 
bedroom  closets,  linen  closets,  toy  closets,  and  so  on.  The 
usual  skimpy  closet  could  be  expanded  into  a  dressing  room 
with  specialized  drawers  and  shelves  for  protecting  and  stor- 
ing clothing.  Designers  are  planning  new  mass-produced 
closets  to  give  maximum  service  at  a  low  price.  These  closets 
will  have  raised  floors  and  rounded  corners  for  easier  cleaning, 
built-in  lights,  mothproof  linings,  built-in  drawers,  and  a  vari- 
ety of  hangers  and  racks  for  trousers,  shoes,  ties,  coats,  and 
hats.  A  few  of  these  closets  could  easily  turn  an  ordinary 
house  into  a  good  one. 

Small  Items  That  Mean  Comfort 

Plastics,  which  are  made  of  air,  water,  coal,  and  limestone, 
will  be  used  for  interior  decoration  in  your  home.  Window 
molding,  doorknobs,  mantels,  and  other  trim  made  of  bright, 
colorful  plastics  will  make  your  home  more  cheerful.  Lucite, 


36  Miracles  Ahead! 

one  of  the  new  plastics,  can  make  light  rays  go  around  a  cor- 
ner. Thus  it  will  be  possible  to  bring  sunlight  from  the  roof 
down  to  any  room  in  your  house.  Among  the  other  synthetics 
are  fabrics,  woven  from  glass,  which  will  make  draperies  and 
curtains  that  are  fireproof,  unfading,  and  practically  ever- 
lasting. 

Russel  and  Mary  Wright  are  confident  that  "increased  ex- 
perience with  synthetic  fibers  will  produce  simplification  of 
the  labor- wasting  system  of  bedmaking.  Imagine  a  buttonless 
mattress  to  which  is  attached  a  permanent  blanket  containing 
a  highly  efficient  insulating  material — both  mattress  and 
blanket  covered  with  a  new  scrubbable  fabric,  leaving  only 
the  sheets  and  pillow  cases  to  be  washed,"  they  explain.  "Im- 
proved electric  blankets  equipped  with  thermostatic  adjust- 
ment to  suit  the  fussiest  sleeper  may  well  become  household 
staples." 

A  Modern  Bathroom 

The  average  bathroom  has  not  been  improved  much  since 
the  1920*8.  The  shower  should  automatically  deliver  water  of 
the  right  temperature,  instead  of  generally  requiring  several 
minutes  of  experimenting.  Built-in  soap  dishes  should  drain 
properly  and  prevent  soap  from  turning  into  a  sticky  mess. 
Instead  of  spilling  several  articles  out  every  time  it  is  opened, 
the  too-shallow  bathroom  cabinet  should  be  deep  enough  to 
hold  the  large  assortment  of  articles  usually  found  in  such  a 
cabinet. 

Discussing  apartment-house  bathrooms,  Elisabeth  Coit  re- 
marks, "How  many  designers  are  guilty  of  putting  bathroom 
cabinets  back  to  back  with  no  insulation  between?  The  neigh- 
bor's conversation  and  his  plumbing  noise  come  right 
through!" 

The  mirror  over  the  washbasin  should  be  well  lighted  and 


Little  Miracles  37 

adjustable  so  a  man  could  shave  himself  without  courting  eye- 
strain  or  razor  nicks.  Knee  levers  or  toe  pedals  should  open 
and  close  the  taps  in  the  washbasin.  And  why  not  make  the 
basin  big  enough  to  bathe  the  baby  in?  Walter  Dorwin  Teague 
suggests  putting  an  electric  washing  machine  under  the  wash- 
basin. Of  course  you  may  prefer  the  laundry  equipment  in 
the  kitchen.  But  since  every  woman  uses  the  bathroom  for 
laundering  stockings  and  lingerie,  some  designers  say  the 
whole  laundry  might  just  as  well  be  done  there. 

Electric  heaters  and  sun  lamps  should  be  built  into  the  bath- 
room ceiling.  A  waterproofed  rubber-tile  floor  would  permit 
a  person  to  walk  around  barefooted  without  getting  cold  feet. 

"The  mass-production  techniques  that  made  the  auto  what 
it  is  today,"  observes  Fortune  magazine,  "may  make  the  bath- 
room what  it  should  be  tomorrow.  Small  bathrooms  could  be 
made  in  a  few  easy-to-assemble  pieces,  priced  to  undersell 
even  the  cheapest  home-installed  jobs.  The  eminently  sensible 
Victorian  custom  of  a  lavatory  in  each  bedroom  might  be 
revived — and  improved — with  devices  like  the  disappearing 
washbasin  of  the  Pullman  bedroom.  Large  bathrooms  could 
include  an  array  of  refinements  and  innovations.  The  largest 
might  include  dressing  rooms  equipped  with  everything  from 
curling  irons  to  overnight  pants  pressers.  Such  units  could 
replace  many  an  existing  bathroom.  With  his  20-year-old  fix- 
tures giving  him  trouble  both  esthetically  and  functionally, 
what  house  owner  could  resist  the  temptation  to  rip  them  out 
and  put  a  $700  dream  in  their  place? " 

Refrigerator  Drawers 

The  prewar  refrigerator  was  a  great  improvement  over  the 
old-fashioned  icebox.  It  kept  food  colder.  But  a  lot  of  that 
"cold"  was  lost  every  time  you  opened  the  refrigerator  door 
and  rummaged  around  hunting  for  something  invariably  be- 


38  Miracles  Ahead! 

hind  two  other  bottles  or  dishes.  A  lot  of  dispositions  were 
ruined  by  balky  ice-cube  trays. 

The  refrigerator  of  the  future  could  be  divided  into  a  series 
of  drawers  spread  out  along  the  kitchen  counter.  Each  drawer 
would  hold  a  certain  kind  of  food  at  its  own  ideal  temperature 
and  humidity.  There  would  be  a  drawer  for  milk,  butter,  and 
cheese;  another  for  frozen  foods;  another  for  meats;  and  an- 
other for  vegetables.  Glass  tops  in  the  kitchen  counter  would 
permit  you  to  see  the  contents  of  a  drawer  without  opening 
it.  Ice  cubes  might  be  obtained  by  pressing  a  button  or  turn- 
ing a  crank. 

The  Hamby  "Kitchenless  House" 

The  basis  of  William  Hamby's  work  is  that  the  home  must 
be  improved  for  the  one  who  uses  it  the  most — the  housewife. 
To  get  rid  of  kitchen  drudgery,  he  has  abolished  the  usual 
kitchen.  He's  streamlined  the  kitchen  and  brought  it  out  in 
the  open  so  that  it  becomes  part  of  the  spacious  dining  area. 
It  forms  the  end  wall  of  the  dining  room.  No  longer  would 
the  kitchen  be  a  room  shut  off  from  the  rest  of  the  house, 
where  a  woman  "stands  over  a  hot  stove,"  wears  herself  out 
stooping  and  stretching  to  get  things  out  of  cupboards  or  the 
refrigerator,  and  keeps  busy  early  and  late  washing  dishes. 

"Don't  think  for  a  minute,"  Hamby  hastens  to  add,  "that 
this  arrangement  handicaps  the  kitchen  by  restricting  it  to 
makeshift  methods — or  that  it  spoils  the  dining  room  by  litter- 
ing it  with  pots  and  pans.  This  is  an  entirely  new  kind  of 
kitchen,  with  far  more  facilities  of  every  sort  than  the  low-cost 
home  has  ever  had  before.  And,  like  nearly  all  things  that 
work  better,  it  looks  better,  too." 

When  you  enter  the  Hamby  "kitchen"  you  immediately 
notice  the  long  horizontal  arrangement  of  counter,  sink,  and 
cupboard  space.  All  the  staples  and  heavy  utensils  are  on  the 


Little  Miracles  39 

shelves  easiest  to  reach — no  more  teetering  around  on  a  step- 
ladder  while  you  hunt  for  an  elusive  box  of  cloves  or  baking 
powder.  The  lighter  dishes  and  plates  are  on  the  shelves  im- 
mediately above.  The  whole  length  of  the  kitchen  counter  is 
designed  for  food  storage,  with  compartments  to  hold  each 
food  at  its  own  ideal  temperature  and  humidity,  including 
vegetables,  meat,  butter,  frosted  foods,  and  cereals. 

This  kitchen  has  an  easy-to-reach  place  for  everything, 
and  everything  is  in  its  place.  You  can  prepare  an  entire 
recipe  at  one  spot,  without  stooping,  stretching,  or  hunting 
for  things.  Suppose  you  take  a  chicken  from  one  of  the 
kitchen-counter  compartments.  Right  at  hand  you  find  all 
the  materials  for  stuffing  the  chicken,  roasting  it,  and  making 
the  gravy.  Then  you  serve  it  at  the  dining  table  only  a  step 
or  two  away.  No,  you  don't  serve  it  on  a  special  platter.  You 
serve  it  in  the  same  utensil  it  was  cooked  in,  for  it  is  a  bright, 
clean  electric  utensil  that  plugs  in  along  the  kitchen  coun- 
ter. 

Automatic  heat  regulation  makes  these  utensils  ideal  for 
cooking  a  meal.  No  longer  do  you  have  to  patrol  the  kitchen 
looking  at  each  pot  and  pan  to  see  that  something  is  not  get- 
ting ready  to  burn.  No  more  do  you  worry  about  whether  the 
beans  and  corn  are  going  to  be  done  too  soon,  and  will  have 
to  stand  around  while  you  fix  the  steak  or  chops.  Automatic 
heat  control  will  see  that  each  vegetable  or  meat  dish  is  done 
at  the  right  moment  to  serve  piping  hot — thus  removing  a 
major  cause  of  worry  for  the  cook. 

By  this  time  you've  also  noted  that  the  kitchen  needs  no 
stove.  That's  another  place  where  cleaning  and  scouring 
would  be  abolished.  You  get  another  pleasant  surprise  when 
you  examine  the  sink.  Instead  of  bothersome  hand  faucets, 
there  are  knee-operated  valves  that  leave  both  hands  free. 
And  a  waterproof  paper  bag,  in  a  compartment  built  into  the 
sink,  does  away  with  the  unattractive  garbage  pail. 


4o  Miracles  Ahead! 

At  one  end  of  the  kitchen  counter  you  discover  another 
device  to  eliminate  "Monday-morning  blues" — it's  a  modern 
automatic  laundry.  The  laundry  is  concealed  from  the  dining 
area  but  is  really  part  of  the  kitchen. 

You  note,  too,  that  the  kitchen  is  flooded  with  light  in  the 
daytime,  but  it  is  not  too  bright  for  your  eyes.  The  kitchen 
wall  itself  is  of  translucent  fiber  glass,  while  the  wall  units  cut 
off  the  light  at  eye  level  and  keep  you  from  having  to  look 
into  the  light.  Fluorescent  tubes  along  the  walls  provide  in- 
expensive, cool  "daylight"  at  night.  In  the  center  is  an  open 
space  of  transparent  glass  to  serve  as  a  window-with-view, 
and  in  this  are  placed  glass  shelves  for  plants  and  flowers. 

An  oil-burning  fireplace  furnace  to  heat  the  house  and  fur- 
nish year-round  hot  water  is  recessed  into  the  living-room 
wall  next  to  the  kitchen.  You  can  open  the  door  to  let  the 
comforting  oil  flame  of  the  furnace  show  through  the  glass 
in  front — all  the  atmosphere  of  the  wood-burning  fireplace 
without  its  bother. 

Hamby  points  out  that  this  arrangement  not  only  simplifies 
the  heating  system  but  concentrates  all  the  mechanical  work- 
ing parts  of  a  house  near  one  point.  "This  would  enable  you," 
he  explains,  "to  get  the  most  out  of  the  plumbing,  wiring  and 
utilities.  In  that  way,  and  through  the  use  of  rust-proof  cop- 
per pipes  and  parts,  leaks  and  costly  repairs  could  be  almost 
permanently  eliminated." 

In  this  two-story  house  the  bath  is  immediately  above  the 
kitchen  and  utilities.  This  location  further  concentrates  the 
mechanical  parts  near  one  point  in  the  house.  By  reducing  the 
length  and  complication  of  the  piping,  such  a  plan  makes  it 
possible  to  use  the  finest  plumbing  methods  and  the  best  ma- 
terials while  keeping  the  over-all  cost  within  the  reach  of 
families  of  moderate  means. 

Because  every  inch  of  space  in  this  "kitchenless  house"  is 
planned  for  full  use,  this  home  can  be  of  modest  proportions 


Little  Miracles  41 

and  stall  provide  plenty  of  living  and  working  space  for  the 
family  of  average  size. 

This  reduction  in  size,  plus  the  simplification  of  mechanical 
parts  so  they  can  be  mass-produced,  should  make  Hamby's 
house  cost  no  more  than  thirty-five  hundred  dollars  complete 
with  all  its  improvements. 


IV 

CARS  OF   THE   1960's 

YOUR  POSTWAR  CAR  will  probably  be  made  of  light  metals  and 
plastics  and  may  therefore  be  around  one  thousand  to  twelve 
hundred  pounds  lighter  than  1942  models!  This  means  a 
smaller,  "air-minded"  motor  designed  to  burn  the  high-octane 
gasoline  now  used  in  fighters  and  bombers.  You  won't  have  to 
bother  with  the  gearshift  at  all,  for  the  gears  will  be  shifted 
automatically  as  your  car  picks  up  speed.  There  will  be  no 
fenders  nor  running  boards  on  this  "wingless  plane-car."  The 
wheels  will  be  enclosed  by  the  streamlined  body  and  the  bot- 
tom of  the  car  will  be  airtight  to  protect  the  drive  shaft,  dif- 
ferential, and  other  parts  from  dust  and  dirt.  Doors  will  slide 
back  or  roll  up  like  a  roll-top  desk  and  will  be  controlled  by 
buttons  instead  of  door  handles! 

Yes,  this  new  car  will  be  more  livable  and  practical  than 
any  you  have  been  able  to  buy  to  date.  Removing  the  fenders 
and  running  boards  will  permit  the  inside  of  your  car  to  be 
more  spacious,  without  greatly  increasing  its  over-all  length. 
This  will  provide  a  back  seat  at  least  six  feet  wide,  giving  space 
for  a  couch  or  bed.  The  driver's  seat  will  be  fixed  (but  adjust- 
able, of  course),  while  the  other  two  front  seats  may  be 
moved  around  as  you  move  your  living-room  chairs.  And 
there  will  be  plenty  of  "living  room"  in  your  new  car.  Uphol- 
stery will  be  of  a  fabric  made  of  soy  beans,  or  a  cloth  spun 
from  glass.  These  can  be  easily  cleaned  with  a  damp  cloth. 
The  inside  of  the  car  will  not  be  cluttered  up  with  window 
cranks,  because  the  vehicle  will  be  air-conditioned. 

42 


Cars  of  the  1960'$  43 

Visibility  for  the  driver  will  be  increased  by  having  his  seat 
far  forward.  Only  about  25  per  cent  of  the  total  length  of  the 
car  will  be  in  front  of  his  line  of  vision,  instead  of  50  per  cent 
as  in  1942  cars.  This  will  enable  the  driver  quickly  to  spot 
cars  coming  in  from  cross  streets  and  eliminate  a  lot  of  nerve- 
racking  sharp  turns  and  quick  stops. 

Your  car's  tough,  transparent  plastic  nose,  like  the  "green- 
houses" on  a  Flying  Fortress,  will  give  you  unbroken  vision 
all  around.  No  more  peeping  from  behind  the  center  or  corner 
posts  in  the  windshield.  This  plastic  nose  will  not  fog  or  frost 
— it  would  not  be  used  by  our  high-flying,  all-weather 
bombers  if  it  did. 

Headlights  could  be  made  to  throw  a  narrow,  flat  beam  to 
illuminate  the  road  ahead  without  blinding  an  approaching 
driver.  Or  a  polarizing  lens  for  headlights,  plus  a  similar  screen 
for  the  windshield,  would  abolish  glare.  A  lens  of  this  type  is 
already  widely  used  in  our  glare-eliminating  sunglasses. 

Your  car  may  have  rubber  springs,  which  also  serve  as  shock 
absorbers.  They  will  operate  silently  and  reduce  road  noise. 
Easier  parking  and  steering  will  be  obtained  by  having  some- 
what smaller  wheels.  But  the  tires  may  be  larger,  using  lower 
air  pressure  to  give  you  smoother  and  longer  service.  Rayon 
cord  fabric  makes  military  tires  stronger.  Your  postwar  tires 
will  be  made  of  long-wearing  synthetic  rubber  (mixed  with 
small  amounts  of  natural  rubber)  and  rayon  cord.  You  should 
get  around  one  hundred  thousand  miles  of  wear  from  these 
tires.  A  very  tough,  heat-resisting  glass-textile  fiber  may  prove 
suitable  for  tire  cord.  If  this  fiber  can  be  used,  it  will  be  pos- 
sible to  reduce  the  amount  of  rubber  in  tires. 

A  plastic  "sky-view"  top  will  give  everybody  in  your  car 
a  chance  to  enjoy  the  scenery  as  you  explore  new  sections  of 
the  country.  Industrial  designer  George  Walker  explains  that 
the  plastic  top  will  permit  the  transmission  of  ultraviolet  rays 
(which  are  halted  by  ordinary  glass)  and  "will  give  the  pas- 


44  Miracles  Ahead! 

senger  a  good  tan  without  the  discomfort  of  sunburn,  due  to 
the  elimination  of  the  infrared  rays."  A  lightweight  Venetian- 
type  blind  could  control  the  amount  of  light  desired,  or  a 
polarizing  device  could  be  adjusted  to  shade  off  excessive  sun- 
light or  glare.  The  plastic  top  also  would  insulate  the  car 
against  summer  heat  and  winter  cold. 

An  air-conditioning  system  will  permit  you  to  take  your 
climate  with  you  no  matter  whether  you  are  touring  a  desert 
wasteland  or  the  icy  mountains.  The  air  conditioner  is  located 
under  the  snub-nosed  hood  in  front  of  the  driver — the  engine 
doesn't  live  there  any  more.  It  is  in  the  rear,  installed  in  "pan- 
cake" fashion  (with  the  cylinders  horizontal).  The  engine  is 
directly  over  the  rear  wheels,  which  permits  the  hooking  of 
the  engine  directly  to  the  transmission  system.  This  arrange- 
ment reduces  the  loss  in  power  resulting  from  the  use  of  a 
long  drive  shaft  running  from  the  front  to  the  rear  of  today's 
car. 

The  removal  of  the  drive  shaft  makes  it  possible  to  lower 
the  floor  of  the  car,  thus  putting  the  center  of  gravity  so  low 
that  on  sharp  turns  at  high  speeds  the  car  banks  and  doesn't 
roll  easily.  You  have  seen  this  principle  demonstrated  by  a 
toy  doll  with  a  weighted  base,  which  keeps  it  from  being 
knocked  over.  One  airplane  feature — vertical  fins  like  plane 
rudders — may  be  used  by  some  postwar  cars  to  give  them 
greater  "readability. "  (One  of  Packard's  designs  for  a  postwar 
car  uses  this  idea.) 

New  Low  Prices 

You  will  get  all  this  and  more  safety,  too,  at  a  low  price  and 
an  operation  cost  little  higher  than  that  of  your  household  ap- 
pliances. 

How  much  will  your  postwar  car  cost?  Some  engineers  say 
a  light  car  can  be  made  to  sell  for  around  seven  hundred  dol- 


Cars  of  the  1960*$  45 

lars,  a  little  less  than  the  same  size  prewar  car.  Others  believe 
that  a  car  can  be  made  to  sell  for  four  hundred  dollars. 

"After  a  few  years,"  remarks  David  Dietz,  Scripps-Howard 
science  editor,  "post-war  cars  will  be  so  far  ahead  of  1942 
models  that  the  differences  separating  the  two  will  be  greater 
than  those  separating  the  1942  car  from  the  old  Model  T 
Ford." 

Dr.  Charles  M.  A.  Stine,  vice-president  of  E.  I.  du  Pont  de 
Nemours  and  Company,  points  out  that  "since  automobile 
production  stopped  the  shiny  new  models  that  are  gathering 
dust  in  dealers'  storerooms  have  aged,  technically,  at  least  20 
years.  We  are  now  in  the  1960*8  of  motor  cars,  as  measured 
by  the  old  pace  of  development." 

Between  1912  and  1942  the  automobile  industry  did  give 
the  consumer  a  car  of  greater  dependability  and  better  appear- 
ance at  a  lower  cost.  In  dollars  per  horsepower,  cars  cost  only 
about  one-third  what  they  did  in  1925.  And  it  cost  the  owner 
a  little  more  than  half  as  much  to  run  his  car  in  1942  as  it  did 
fifteen  years  ago! 

But  in  recent  years  the  more  the  prewar  car  seemed  to 
change  the  more  it  remained  the  same.  The  main  reason  for 
this  was  the  huge  investment  in  expensive  dies  and  tools  which 
the  companies  did  not  want  to  scrap.  A  new  model  was 
brought  out  each  year,  but  this  model  did  not  differ  more 
than  10  per  cent  from  the  previous  year's  model. 

Automobile  stylists  designed  a  car  with  accent  on  beauty. 
They  went  in  for  fancy  fenders  and  radiator  grilles.  They 
streamlined  the  windshield  by  slanting  it,  but  they  also  stream- 
lined the  rear  window  so  that  in  winter  snow  piled  on  it  and 
the  driver  couldn't  see  out.  Even  in  clear  weather  the  rear 
window  gave  the  driver  little  more  vision  than  that  afforded 
by  the  tank  driver's  slit  in  an  M-4  tank.  Meanwhile  the  auto- 
motive engineers  were  forced  to  wrench  the  machinery 
around  to  fit  the  stylists'  ideas  of  what  a  car  should  look  like. 


46  Miracles  Ahead! 

In  1942,  however,  the  automobile  industry  was  converted  to 
war  production.  While  setting  records  in  the  output  of  tanks, 
guns,  planes,  and  other  equipment  for  war,  the  automobile 
industry  has  learned  a  lot  about  using  light  metals,  plastics, 
compact  engines,  and  new  fuels  for  postwar  automobiles. 
Furthermore,  the  old  automobile  assembly  lines  have  been  torn 
out  to  make  way  for  war  production;  some  tools  and  dies 
have  been  scrapped,  or  are  getting  out  of  date. 

Figuratively  rubbing  his  hands,  Fred  M.  Zeder,  chief  engi- 
neer and  vice-chairman  of  the  board  of  Chrysler  Corporation, 
declares: 

"As  a  result  of  the  suspension  of  automobile  production, 
the  industry  will  find  itself  for  the  first  time,  when  the  war 
is  over,  able  to  approach  the  design  and  construction  of 
motorcars  on  a  new  basis.  The  war  has  freed  motorcar  engi- 
neers from  the  traditions  of  the  past,  freed  them  from  the 
stranglehold  of  old  machine  tools  and  methods.  Research  can 
now  be  directed  at  things  as  they  should  be,  rather  than  as 
they  are." 

Engines  Move  Back 

Needless  to  say,  all  of  the  new  possibilities  for  the  car  of 
the  future  will  not  be  adopted  without  a  struggle.  The  pros 
and  cons  on  rear  engines  are  being  argued  fiercely  now  and, 
to  be  sure,  you  will  be  able  to  buy  cars  in  the  future  with 
engines  up  in  front.  Some  engineers  still  favor  that  arrange- 
ment. They  contend  that  a  rear-engined  car  will  be  difficult 
to  control  at  high  speeds  and  that  a  constant  weight  on  the 
front  wheels  makes  for  a  smoother  ride.  They  also  point  out 
that  the  necessity  of  keeping  the  engine  cool  requires  that  it 
be  up  front  so  the  radiator  can  get  the  benefit  of  natural 
draft. 

Proponents  of  the  rear-engined  car  say  the  weight  prob- 


Cars  of  the  i$6o's  47 

lem  will  be  solved  by  the  building  of  lighter  engines.  William 
"Bill"  Stout  says  the  rear-engined  car  can  be  cooled  efficiently 
if  the  motor  is  installed  lengthwise  instead  of  sidewise.  His 
rear-engined  Scarab,  which  was  built  in  1935,  used  a  Ford 
V-8  motor,  with  cooling  solution  sealed  in,  and  ventilation 
vanes  built  into  the  engine  housing.  A  "pancake"  motor  could 
be  cooled  by  bringing  the  air  down  from  a  grille  in  front  of 
the  car  and  passing  it  to  the  motor  through  a  tube  running 
under  the  floor.  Some  critics  of  rear-engine  installation  agree 
that  if  a  compact  air-cooled  engine  is  generally  adopted  it 
could  be  placed  anywhere. 

Mr.  Stout  reminds  us  that  the  first  cars  had  their  engines 
in  the  rear;  but  the  manufacturers  abandoned  the  idea  because 
they  could  not  drop  the  notion,  says  Stout,  that  a  car  was 
really  a  buggy,  with  an  engine  instead  of  a  horse  between  the 
shafts. 

Stout  insists  that  the  rear-engine  car  is  safer,  having  less 
tendency  to  skid  because  the  additional  weight  gives  the  rear 
tires  a  better  grip  on  the  road  than  does  today's  front-engined 
car.  "Even  on  ice,"  he  adds,  "I  find  it  easy  to  maintain  trac- 
tion in  this  car — the  Scarab — which  I  have  driven  125,000 
miles.  With  the  weight  in  back,  the  rear  seat  ride  will  be  the 
best  ride  in  the  car.  In  front-engined  cars  the  best  ride  is  given 
the  engine,  and  the  passengers  take  the  bumps.  ...  At  the 
same  time,  the  front  end  is  light  enough  so  that  if  you  run  off 
the  slab  onto  soft  spots  beside  the  highway  there  will  be  no 
tendency  for  the  front  wheels  to  bury  themselves  in  the  mud 
and  put  the  car  out  of  control." 

Engineers  may  continue  to  argue  over  where  the  engine 
should  be  placed.  But  they  all  agree  that  it  should  be  improved. 
"The  present  engine,"  declares  Fred  M.  Zeder,  "weighs  five 
times  as  much  per  horsepower  as  the  aviation  engine.  .  .  . 
We  can  go  as  far  as  we  want  in  weight  reduction  of  auto- 
mobile engines.  In  fact,  it's  possible  to  eliminate  250  of  the 


48  Miracles  Ahead! 

average  of  600  pounds."  "Bill"  Stout  already  has  developed 
a  hundred-pound,  hundred-horsepower,  four-cylinder,  air- 
cooled  automobile  engine. 

New  Metals  for  New  Motors 

New  light  but  tough  metals  and  more  powerful  gasoline 
will  aid  in  the  perfecting  of  small,  high-speed  auto  engines 
with  greater  power  per  pound  of  weight.  If  a  little  gasoline  is 
poured  on  the  ground  and  ignited,  it  flares  up  quietly.  But  if 
gasoline  and  air  are  compressed  by  the  piston  in  the  cylinder 
of  an  engine,  and  then  ignited  by  a  spark,  the  mixture  burns 
very  rapidly  and  the  consequent  expansion  drives  the  piston 
back  with  great  force.  The  more  the  gasoline  and  air  are  com- 
pressed the  greater  the  power  delivered.  The  problem  has 
been  to  make  a  cylinder  head  strong  enough  to  stand  the 
greater  pressure  exerted  by  a  high-compression  motor,  with- 
out adding  too  much  dead  weight  to  the  motor. 

The  use  of  steel  alloys  (steel  plus  vanadium,  chromium, 
molybdenum,  manganese,  etc.)  and  beryllium  has  produced 
materials  which  make  light  but  tremendously  strong  cylinder 
heads.  Further  experimentation  with  beryllium,  the  tough 
cousin  of  aluminum  and  magnesium,  promises  to  bring  future 
marvels  in  metallurgy  to  speed  the  building  of  the  low-cost 
postwar  automobile. 

Beryllium  is  one-third  lighter  than  aluminum  and  harder 
then  steel,  but  it  is  too  brittle  alone  for  use  in  high-speed 
machinery.  If  2  per  cent  of  beryllium  is  added  to  copper,  and 
a  heat  treatment  then  is  used,  an  amazing  change  is  wrought 
in  copper.  The  beryllium-copper  alloy  made  into  a  rod  only 
one-half  inch  thick  will  lift  twenty  tons!  A  beryllium  copper 
chisel  can  be  driven  through  steel.  Most  metals  "get  tired," 
but  beryllium-copper  is  virtually  untiring.  It  gets  a  "second 
wind"  just  when  other  metals  give  up  the  race.  For  instance, 


Cars  of  the  i^66>s  49 

spring  steel  will  take  three  million  vibrations  on  a  testing 
machine.  Beryllium-copper  can  take  at  least  one  billion. 

The  delicate  new  aviation  instruments  have  beryllium- 
copper  in  them  to  assure  permanent  accuracy  under  all  sorts 
of  stress  and  strain.  Engineers  have  begun  to  use  this  alloy  in 
the  electrical  equipment,  valves,  and  gears  of  engines,  and  in 
radios,  electric  motors,  and  other  high-speed  machines.  Your 
vacuum  cleaner  and  refrigerator  give  you  longer  service 
because  of  beryllium-copper. 

Another  alloy — beryllium-nickel — is  stronger  than  beryl- 
lium-copper and  has  a  bright  future.  If  beryllium  and  alumi- 
num can  be  combined,  the  automobile  and  aviation  industries 
may  have  the  perfect  alloy  for  engine  pistons.  And  when  the 
problem  of  combining  beryllium  and  magnesium  is  solved, 
engineers  will  have  an  excellent  alloy  for  structural  purposes. 

As  beryllium-production  processes  are  simplified,  and  the 
price  is  lowered,  this  metal  will  be  used  more  widely  in  the 
building  of  a  better  postwar  auto  engine. 

Renaissance  of  the  Diesels 

Recent  improvements  in  Diesel  engines  indicate  that  the 
present  gasoline  motor  may  someday  have  to  look  to  its  lau- 
rels. The  Navy  is  using  a  new  "pancake"-type  Diesel  engine 
which  gives  lighter  ships  increased  speed  and  range. 

Dr.  Rudolph  Diesel,  a  German  engineer,  patented  his  en- 
gine in  1892  and  first  operated  it  successfully  in  1897.  The 
power  explosion  in  the  Diesel  cylinder  is  caused  by  compres- 
sion instead  of  by  a  spark  as  in  a  gasoline  engine. 

Thus  the  Diesel  has  no  ignition  system  nor  spark  plugs. 
Neither  does  it  have  a  carburetor,  which  is  used  in  the  gaso- 
line engine  to  mix  air  and  gasoline  and  admit  them  to  the  cyl- 
inder. In  place  of  the  ignition  system  and  carburetor  there  are 
injectors,  which  are  usually  placed  about  where  the  spark 


50  Miracles  Ahead! 

plugs  would  be  in  a  gasoline  engine,  and  the  injection 
pumps. 

The  Diesel's  piston  compresses  the  air  in  the  cylinder  and 
raises  the  temperature  to  about  1,000  degrees  Fahrenheit.  (You 
may  remember  how  a  bicycle  pump  gets  hot  while  you  are 
pumping  up  a  tire.)  When  the  piston  is  near  the  top  of  the 
cylinder,  fuel  is  injected  into  the  heated  air  in  the  form  of  a 
fine  spray;  and  it  starts  to  burn  immediately.  The  burning 
fuel  then  expands  rapidly  and  forces  the  piston  down. 

The  best  gasoline  engines  must  use  high-octane  fuel,  and 
others  generally  use  ordinary  gasoline.  But  the  Diesel  will  use 
any  fuel — gaseous,  liquid,  or  solid — igniting  at  1,000  degrees 
Fahrenheit  or  under  that  can  be  sprayed  into  the  cylinder. 
Usually  the  Diesel  burns  heavy  fuel  oil.  Diesel's  first  engine 
used  powdered  coal,  and  even  buttermilk  has  been  used.  The 
Diesel  is  not  choosy! 

Aside  from  the  fuel-economy  angle,  the  Diesel  is  the  most 
efficient  of  all  types  of  heat  engines.  The  steam  engine  is  6  to 
8  per  cent  efficient;  the  steam-power  plant,  15  to  27  per  cent; 
the  gasoline  engine,  22  to  28  per  cent;  the  Diesel,  32  to  38  per 
cent.  The  temperature  of  the  Diesel  never  is  as  high  as  that  of 
the  gasoline  engine.  High  cylinder  temperatures  are  always 
transmitted  to  the  surrounding  air  or  cooling  water,  and  are 
carried  off  as  waste  energy.  Therefore  the  Diesel  wastes  less 
energy  in  this  manner  than  the  gasoline  engine — one  of  the 
main  reasons  why  it  is  more  efficient. 

Charles  F.  Kettering,  research  chief  of  General  Motors, 
believes  the  Diesel  is  ready  to  go  places  after  having  expe- 
rienced plenty  of  growing  pains. 

"In  old  days,"  he  said,  "  Diesels  were  large  and  terribly 
heavy.  They  used  to  say  a  Diesel  was  'a  mountain  of  iron 
with  a  rivulet  of  power/  Also,  it  made  a  lot  of  noise  and  a 
bad  smell.  One  trouble  was  that  for  the  first  20  years,  because 
they  put  Diesels  in  boats,  they  tried  to  make  them  like  gaso- 


Cars  of  the  i$6o's  51 

line  engines.  Now,  we  are  trying  to  make  them  like  Diesel 
engines.  So,  with  constantly  better  alloys  and  knowledge  of 
combustion,  we  are  steadily  taking  metal,  and  noise,  and  smell 
out  of  the  Diesel." 

In  1937  Kettering  declared  that  "the  Diesel  is  entering  new 
fields  of  usefulness  entirely  unsuspected  just  a  few  short  years 
ago."  Today  the  Diesel  seems  headed  for  still  newer  fields. 

Recently  it  was  discovered  that  when  ordinary  gasoline  was 
used  as  a  fuel  in  the  Diesel  it  gave  one-third  more  miles  per 
gallon  than  the  same  fuel  would  have  given  in  a  gasoline 
engine.  This  discovery  may  lead  to  the  adoption  of  a  fuel- 
injection  gasoline  engine,  without  spark  plugs  or  carburetor, 
which  operates  on  the  Diesel  principle.  Excellent  German 
aviation  engines  use  the  fuel-injection  system  and  give  plenty 
of  power  with  gasoline  which  has  a  much  lower  octane  rating 
than  our  new  fuels.  So  here  is  another  possibility  for  the  super- 
efficient  postwar  auto  engine. 

Jeeps  for  the  Farm 

When  they  stop  to  think  about  postwar  cars,  engineers  give 
some  attention  to  the  jeep's  character  and  performance.  This 
2,200  pound  combat  car  can  carry  six  men  in  an  emergency, 
mount  a  fifty-caliber  machine  gun,  and  tow  guns  and  other 
equipment.  There  are  few  jobs  in  the  Army  that  it  hasn't 
been  asked  to  do  and  it  does  them  well. 

It  is  powered  by  a  four-cylinder,  sixty-horsepower,  go-devil 
engine  and  has  six  speeds  forward  and  two  in  reverse.  It  can 
plow  through  high  water,  duck  in  and  out  of  ditches,  dodge 
under  trees,  and  scramble  up  steep  hills  while  its  crew  is 
pumping  lead  at  the  enemy. 

The  American  Bantam  Car  Company  came  forward  with 
an  idea  for  a  jeep  in  1940,  and  the  Army  promptly  dropped  its 
plan  to  buy  a  lot  of  motorcycles.  Willys-Overland,  Bantam, 


52  Miracles  Ahead! 

and  Ford  now  make  jeeps  for  the  Army,  which  considers 
them  our  main  contribution  to  mobile  warfare.  The  Russians, 
who  know  a  thing  or  two  about  fighting  in  all  sorts  of 
weather,  agree  that  the  jeep  is  no  "summer  soldier." 

No  one  proposes  that  the  jeep  replace  the  passenger  auto- 
mobile, but  Don  E.  Weaver,  editor  of  the  Fort  Worth  Press, 
believes  the  jeep  will  be  kept  busy  when  the  war  ends. 

"After  the  Civil  War,"  he  wrote,  "the  slogan  was  '40  acres 
and  a  mule.'  Well,  why  not  40  acres  and  a  jeep?  The  Depart- 
ment of  Agriculture  has  tried  them  out  and  finds  that  they 
can  pull  a  plow,  cultivator,  or  mower  as  well  as  a  tractor. 
And  you  can  unhitch  the  plow,  load  up  the  wife  and  kids, 
and  go  to  town  in  the  jeep  on  Saturday  nights. 

"The  farmer  lost  the  old  family  horse  when  he  got  a  flivver 
and  a  tractor.  The  flivver  couldn't  work  the  fields  and  he 
couldn't  go  to  town  in  the  tractor.  The  jeep,  bless  its  heart, 
can  do  both. 

"If  you're  not  interested  in  farming  40  acres  with  a  jeep, 
or  in  using  one  to  herd  cattle  or  ride  fences  on  your  ranch, 
maybe  you  would  like  to  take  a  two-week  vacation  rough- 
ing it.  The  modern  auto  is  swell,  but  it  can't  be  everything. 
It  has  been  refined  for  superluxurious  city  use.  The  jeep  is  as 
outdoors  as  a  hunting  dog." 

The  Plastic  Car 

Several  materials  may  be  expected  to  compete  for  the  honor 
of  forming  the  body  of  your  postwar  car.  Plastics  made  of 
soy  beans,  resins,  grains,  petroleum,  and  other  unlikely 
sounding  products  have  a  lot  to  recommend  them.  Robert  A. 
Boyer,  until  recently  a  research  engineer  for  Henry  Ford,  has 
built  an  all-plastic  car  body  which  is  eight  hundred  pounds 
lighter  than  the  standard  model  and  has  ten  times  the  impact 
strength  of  steel.  Boyer  agrees  that  a  plastic  car  may  not  be  a 


Cars  of  the  1960'$  53 

great  deal  better  than  a  steel  car,  "but  plastics  will  enable  us  to 
build  a  better  car  at  lower  cost." 

Plastic  bodies  will  be  built  in  panels.  In  case  of  a  wreck, 
only  the  damaged  panel  would  have  to  be  replaced.  In  the 
future,  dealers  may  stock  body  panels  as  well  as  parts.  You 
can  stop  worrying  about  the  usual  crop  of  scratches  and  dents 
that  a  car  generally  picks  up  in  the  course  of  a  year's  driving. 
Plastic  bodies  can  take  punishment.  A  husky  man  smacked 
the  Ford  plastic  car  with  an  ax  and  failed  to  dent  it.  For 
another  thing,  the  smooth,  hard  finish  on  your  plastic  car  is 
built  in  to  stay  forever. 

Molded  plywood — alternate  layers  of  wood  and  plastic 
baked  into  shape  under  pressure — will  give  plastics  a  lot  of 
competition.  Factories  now  are  turning  out  molded-plywood 
tails,  wings,  and  fuselages  for  training  planes,  and  fuselages 
for  bombers  and  cargo  planes.  The  fuselage  of  Britain's  De 
Haviland  twin-engined  Mosquito  bomber,  which  carries  two 
thousand  pounds  of  bombs  and  has  a  range  of  three  thousand 
miles,  is  made  of  two  layers  of  plywood  with  a  center  of  balsa 
sandwiched  between  them.  It  takes  hours  to  plug  bulletholes 
in  a  metal  plane,  but  a  wooden  Mosquito  bomber  can  be 
patched  in  a  few  minutes. 

Plastics  and  plastic  plywood  both  will  be  challenged  by 
aluminum  and  magnesium  alloys.  These  two  metals  are  vital 
in  airplane  construction.  Wartime  necessity  has  tremendously 
expanded  our  output  of  aluminum  and  magnesium,  and  low- 
ered their  price  so  they  will  be  available  for  low-cost  cars. 
In  1941,  automobiles  used  an  average  of  only  seven  pounds 
of  aluminum,  while  magnesium  was,  until  a  few  years  ago,  a 
structural  curiosity.  A  lighter,  but  strong,  automobile  chassis 
will  be  made  from  aluminum  and  magnesium  alloys.  In  addi- 
tion, welding  will  replace  bolts  and  rivets  in  the  construction 
of  the  chassis. 

Some  automotive  engineers  are  confident  that  steel  will  not 


54  Miracles  Ahead! 

be  elbowed  out  of  the  race  by  other  rivals.  They  explain  that 
although  stainless  steel  is  three  times  as  heavy  as  the  light- 
metal  alloys  it  is  so  much  stronger  that  only  one-third  as  much 
need  be  used.  They  believe  that  further  experiments  with 
light-gauge  steel  will  permit  them  to  do  as  much  with  it  as 
with  the  light  metals. 

New  Gasoline 

Tremendous  improvement  in  gasoline  not  only  will  permit 
the  use  of  lighter,  smaller  engines  but  will  require  the  con- 
struction of  entirely  new  engines  to  burn  this  fuel.  The 
Socony- Vacuum  Oil  Company  reports  that  its  new  gasoline 
is  so  powerful  that  no  engine  now  in  operation  can  make  full 
use  of  it. 

The  big  oil  companies  are  producing  immense  quantities  of 
powerful  (high-octane)  gasoline  for  military  use.  This  fuel 
should  hasten  the  day  of  victory.  It  adds  15  per  cent  to  the 
operating  range  of  our  bombers  and  permits  an  increased  load 
of  two  to  three  tons  of  bombs  for  every  ten  tons  they  carry 
today.  It  enables  fighter  planes  to  get  "upstairs"  faster — a 
priceless  asset  in  aerial  combat.  Cargo  planes  carry  heavier 
loads  to  far-flung  battle  fronts  because  their  engines  have  the 
extra  power  needed  for  the  job. 

This  extra  power  is  made  possible  because  high-octane  gas- 
oline gets  rid  of  the  "knock"  in  engines.  When  fuel  "knocks" 
in  an  engine  it  is  not  burning  evenly  and  efficiently.  In  order 
to  build  a  high-compression  engine  it  was  necessary  to  develop 
high-octane  "antiknock"  gasoline. 

Several  years  ago  chemists  worked  out  an  "octane  scale"  to 
measure  the  efficiency  and  "antiknock"  quality  of  gasoline. 
The  "100  octane"  rating  was  given  a  variety  of  fuel  that 
would  be  100  per  cent  antiknock.  Then  the  chemists  began 
shooting  at  the  100  octane  goal. 


Cars  of  the  196 cfs  55 

First  Dr.  Thomas  Midgley,  Jr.,  discovered  that  a  few  drops 
of  tetraethyl  lead  (composed  of  lead  and  alcohol)  in  gasoline 
made  it  burn  evenly  and  halted  the  knocking.  But,  since  tetra- 
ethyl lead's  effectiveness  strangely  decreases  as  the  amount 
added  to  gasoline  increases,  it  could  not  raise  the  octane  rating 
of  gasoline  above  87 — the  type  of  fuel  our  military  planes 
used  for  years. 

So,  instead  of  adding  anything  more  to  gasoline,  the  chem- 
ists took  the  second  step.  They  began  to  rebuild  the  fuel  itself. 
Crude  oil  is  a  complicated  compound  of  hydrogen  and  car- 
bon, with  smaller  amounts  of  sulphur,  oxygen,  and  a  few 
other  elements.  By  a  refining  process  known  as  "cracking," 
the  hydrocarbon  molecules  are  cracked  apart  under  terrific 
pressure  and  heat.  Then  they  are  hooked  together  again  to 
form  a  new  fuel — high-octane  gasoline.  Improvements  in  the 
cracking  process  have  brought  a  great  saving  in  petroleum 
supplies,  because  it  can  make  high-octane  fuel  from  heavy  oils 
that  otherwise  could  not  be  used  for  gasoline. 

Today  we  have  several  fuels  that  exceed  the  100  octane 
rating.  One  superfuel — "triptane" — is  reported  to  be  50  per 
cent  more  powerful  than  aviation  gasoline.  Only  very  small 
amounts  of  triptane  can  be  made  now,  but  it,  and  other  super- 
fuels,  should  be  in  quantity  production  in  a  few  years. 

Our  capacity  to  produce  powerful  fuels  will  be  available 
for  civilian  cars  when  the  war  is  over.  And  the  price  will  be 
low.  These  high-octane  fuels  will  mean  that  if  you  now  get 
eighteen  miles  per  gallon  you  should  get  thirty  or  more  in 
the  postwar  years. 

Future  Traffic  Solutions 

By  now  you  may  be  saying,  "This  low-cost  postwar  dream 
car  sounds  fine.  But  it  will  merely  be  a  nightmare  to  me  unless 
something  is  done  about  traffic  congestion  and  parking  diffi- 


56  Miracles  Ahead! 

culties;  blind  crossings  and  reckless  drivers,  whose  tribe  seems 


to  increase." 


Highway  and  traffic  engineers,  and  radio  experts,  are  going 
to  do  something  about  these  problems.  More  superhighways, 
with  underpasses  and  overpasses,  will  be  built  between  large 
cities.  (These  highways  also  will  be  widened  at  certain  points 
with  landing  strips  for  airplanes.)  Crooked,  narrow  "bottle- 
neck" streets  in  cities  and  towns  will  be  straightened  and 
widened,  and  elevated  highways  will  be  built  to  speed  up 
city  traffic.  These  jobs  will  cost  a  lot  of  money,  but  they  will 
be  worth  it.  It  is  estimated  that  traffic  snarls  cost  several  mil- 
lion dollars  a  year  in  New  York  City  alone.  The  use  of  build- 
ing roofs  and  basements  for  parking,  an  idea  that  has  already 
been  tried  out  in  some  cities,  will  be  generally  adopted  in  the 
future.  No  longer  will  street  parking  be  permitted  to  cut  the 
efficiency  of  expensive  streets  by  50  per  cent. 

The  Radio  Traffic  Cop 

In  a  few  years  your  car  radio  may  have  two  receivers — 
one  for  your  favorite  dance  band  or  news  commentator  and 
the  other  for  the  radio  traffic  cop,  who  will  patrol  the  roads 
or  be  stationed  at  strategic  spots.  He  will  give  you  directions 
via  standard  national  highway  frequency,  warning  you  of  an 
accident  down  the  road,  a  dangerous  curve,  a  damaged  bridge, 
or  a  blind  crossing.  And  in  a  few  more  years  the  traffic  cop 
may  be  hovering  overhead  in  a  helicopter  to  shepherd  you 
around  traffic  jams  or  road  hazards. 

William  S.  Halstead,  a  New  York  City  communications 
engineer,  believes  that  the  automobile  of  the  future  will 
emphasize  safety  in  order  to  compete  with  low-cost  airplanes. 
"Auto  makers,"  he  said,  "have  made  the  car  safe.  The  post- 
war emphasis  will  be  on  making  the  driver  safe.  The  most 
likely  method  to  be  used  will  be  highway  radio  broadcasts 


Cars  of  the  1966*$  57 

which  will  feed  caution  and  common  sense  into  the  ears  of 
the  driver  and  relieve  his  already  strained  eyes.  The  road 
marker  of  the  future  will  be  the  radio" 

Radar  for  Driving  Safety 

Radar,  the  war  device  that  has  been  guarding  our  coasts  and 
shipping  lanes,  will  give  aid  and  comfort  to  the  motorist  in 
years  to  come.  Radar  means  RAdio  Detecting  And  Ranging. 
It  can  spot  the  enemy  beyond  the  range  of  human  eyes  and 
ears,  and  fog,  clouds,  storms,  or  darkness  have  no  effect  on 
its  amazing  powers.  This  electronic  device  sends  out  ultra- 
high-frequency -radio  waves.  If  these  waves  strike  an  enemy 
submarine,  plane,  or  ship,  they  bounce  back,  and  in  doing  so 
they  locate  and  measure  the  distance  to  the  enemy  targets. 

With  Radar  in  your  car  you  won't  have  to  worry  about  a 
pea-soup  fog  or  a  blinding  storm.  The  radio  waves  from  your 
car  will  pierce  the  gloom  and  warn  you  if  there  is  danger 
ahead. 

Radio  advances  in  the  future  may  permit  you  to  follow  a 
direction  beam  just  as  planes  do.  No  more  poring  over  road 
maps.  You  tune  in  on  the  wave  length  of  the  city  you  wish  to 
visit,  and  ride  in  on  the  beam. 

Postwar  Dilemma 

At  present  the  V  Day  plans  of  automobile  makers  call  for 
a  quick  change-over  to  the  production  of  slightly  modified 
1942  models.  They  explain  that  this  procedure  will  help  cush- 
ion anticipated  widespread  unemployment  during  the  recon- 
version of  industries  to  peacetime  production,  and  also  meet 
the  heavy  demand  of  eager  buyers  for  new  cars. 

Leo  H.  Rich,  an  associate  of  Walter  Dorwin  Teague,  an 
industrial  designer,  is  critical  of  manufacturers  who  plan  to 


58  Miracles  Ahead! 

return  to  1942  models.  He  declared  that  manufacturers  have 
educated  the  public  to  expect  new  models  each  year  and  that 
consumers,  who  are  aware  of  the  great  strides  industry  is  mak- 
ing during  the  war,  are  looking  for  remarkable  improvements 
in  postwar  products. 

"This  does  not  mean,"  he  said,  "that  the  public  expects  or 
would  welcome  all  the  radical  fantasies  which  have  been 
dreamed  of  on  various  drawing  boards,  but  it  certainly  doesn't 
expect  that  the  war  will  have  brought  no  progress." 

Rich  agreed  that  some  manufacturers  will  have  no  chance 
to  retool  before  peace,  and  some  must  resume  production  of 
1942  models  in  order  to  bridge  the  gap  and  avoid  unemploy- 
ment. But  he  added  that  "this  should  be  a  stop-gap  policy  and 
manufacturers  should  disown  any  desire  to  capitalize  on  a 
sellers'  market." 

He  suggested  that  1942  models  be  labeled  "temporary"  or 
"victory"  models  and  that  new  designs  should  not  have  to 
wait  until  the  market  for  these  is  exhausted. 

Other  commentators  argue  that  when  peace  comes  there 
will  be  few  if  any  automobile  tools  or  dies  on  hand  to  pro- 
duce 1942  models.  They  say  that  now  is  the  time  for  the 
industry  to  redesign  an  entirely  new  car.  It  is  agreed  that 
industry  should  swing  into  action  quickly  to  prevent  mass 
unemployment  after  the  war.  But  the  point  then  is  made  that 
consumers  may  sit  tight  and  refuse  to  buy  a  1942  model  car, 
after  having  heard  of  the  "big  things"  to  come.  Critics  of  the 
stopgap  production  plan  also  warn  that  if  the  automobile 
companies  don't  step  out  with  new  models  other  competitors 
may  beat  them  to  it  and  cut  into  their  market. 

Competition  between  airplane  and  automobile  companies 
will  speed  the  development  of  a  new  and  better  automo- 
bile. Teamwork  on  war  production  has  put  plane  and  auto 
companies  in  one  another's  "back  yards."  They  may  stay 
there  when  the  war  is  over.  Airplane  engineers  may  want  to 


Cars  of  the  1966*3  59 

use  their  "know  how"  with  plastic  panels,  light  metals,  and 
compact,  powerful  engines  to  produce  a  light,  low-cost  car. 
Automotive  engineers  may  welcome  the  chance  to  show  how 
low-cost  "family-style"  planes  can  be  mass-produced  for  a 
postwar  civilian  market.  Both  sides  also  have  picked  up  ideas, 
new  materials,  and  methods  which  they  can  use  in  their  own 
industries. 


YOUR  FLYING  FLIVVER 

IN  LESS  than  a  decade  you  may  be  using  a  small  flivver  plane, 
a  helicopter,  or  an  autogiro  as  often  and  as  nonchalantly  as 
you  have  been  accustomed  in  the  past  to  using  the  "family 
bus"  for  week-end  trips  and  vacation  outings.  In  fact,  you 
may  turn  to  flying  in  order  to  obtain  relief  from  the  strain  of 
driving  a  car  over  congested  highways. 

The  mass-production  techniques  that  have  been  developed 
during  wartime  for  the  manufacture  of  a  great  variety  of 
planes  for  war  use  mean  low-cost  planes  for  civilian  use  later 
on.  Furthermore,  the  incessant  testing,  checking,  and  remodel- 
ing that  have  been  going  on  during  the  war,  making  planes 
safer  and  still  safer,  mean  flying  ships  for  civilians  later  on 
that  will  be  almost  foolproof. 

Scores  of  manufacturers  already  have  their  designs  for 
civilian  planes  on  paper.  Most  of  them,  such  as  the  Cessna, 
Aeronca,  Piper  Cub,  and  Taylorcraft,  will  look  something 
like  the  light  planes  of  today.  Several  of  these  planes  will, 
however,  have  four-wheel  landing  gear  and  folding  wings  so 
they  can  be  operated  both  as  a  plane  and  as  a  car.  All  of  them 
will  have  improved  engines  for  low-cost  operation  and  will 
take  off  and  land  safely  in  small  areas. 

The  light  plane  has  been  tested  in  battle  and  found  strictly 
A- 1  in  performance.  "L"-type  Grasshoppers  (liaison  planes 
which  hedgehop  from  point  to  point  during  battles)  are  as 
versatile  and  hard  to  hurt  as  the  Army's  jeep.  Able  to  take  off 
and  land  on  all  sorts  of  terrain,  and  to  duck  among  trees  or 
fly  slowly  to  avoid  enemy  "chicken  hawks,"  the  Grasshoppers 

60 


Your  Flying  Flivver  61 

are  ideal  as  observation  craft.  Equipped  with  two-way  radio 
and  manned  by  a  pilot  and  observer,  the  Grasshoppers  spot 
enemy  guns  and  direct  the  fire  of  our  artillery.  These  planes 
also  can  transport  men  and  materials  to  front-line  points  which 
could  not  be  reached  by  heavy  cargo  planes.  They  have 
served  successfully  as  hospital  planes  for  the  evacuation  of 
wounded.  Other  types  of  light,  unarmored  planes  are  used  as 
training  craft  for  pilots. 

Your  First  Plane — the  Helicopter 

Unless  you  are  air-minded  and  have  already  had  some  expe- 
rience in  piloting  a  plane,  your  first  flying  ship  may  well  be  a 
helicopter.  You  will  regard  this  rotary- wing  craft  with  affec- 
tion and  esteem  because  of  the  ease  and  simplicity  with  which 
it  can  be  operated.  Its  horizontal,  revolving  blades  enable  it 
to  fly  straight  up,  straight  down,  forward,  backward,  side- 
ways, and  to  hover  stationary  in  the  air  like  a  gnat  or  hum- 
mingbird. It  can  operate  from  your  back  yard,  the  roof  of 
an  office  building,  or  a  side  street.  Most  airplanes  are  still 
demanding  creatures  when  it  comes  to  take-off  and  landing 
space.  The  helicopter  asks  no  favors.  All  it  requires  is  space 
large  enough  to  contain  its  structure. 

Igor  Ivan  Sikorsky,  the  designer  of  one  of  the  first  success- 
ful helicopters,  contends  that  it  is  far  simpler  to  handle  than 
a  plane.  "In  the  conventional  craft,"  he  explains,  "you  can't 
make  .the  controls  function  effectively  for  flight  under  a  for- 
ward speed  of  less  than  50  or  60  mph.  But  in  the  helicopter, 
you  can  stay  in  one  place  and  learn  everything  you  need  to 
know  in  complete  safety. 

"You  can  get  in  your  new  helicopter,  speed  up  the  rotor 
blades,  and  pull  the  left  lift  lever,  but  you  don't  rise,  as  you 
expect,  to  a  disconcerting  height;  instead,  a  cable  attached  to 
the  helicopter  holds  it  some  four  feet  above  the  ground,  per- 


62  Miracles  Ahead! 

mitting  you  safely  and  easily  to  study  the  control  movements. 
How  simple  this  method  of  accustoming  yourself  to  flying  a 
helicopter!  And  I  am  certain  that  flying  a  direct-lift  machine 
will  become,  in  time,  just  as  much  an  automatic  habit  as  driv- 
ing your  motorcar  is  now." 

How  to  Fly  a  Helicopter 

The  controls  of  the  helicopter  are  easy  to  operate.  A  con- 
vertible model,  which  can  be  driven  like  a  car,  has  a  clutch 
for  applying  the  engine's  power  to  the  wheels.  Thus  you  don't 
have  to  push  the  helicopter  out  of  the  garage.  You  open  the 
doors  and  drive  it  out.  Or  your  garage  may  have  a  roll-back 
roof  so  that  the  helicopter  can  rise  straight  up  and  be  on  its 
way. 

There  is  a  tachometer  on  the  instrument  panel  which  counts 
the  number  of  revolutions  a  minute  made  by  the  rotor  blades. 
When  you  want  to  ascend  you  open  the  throttle  and  watch 
the  tachometer  until  the  rotor  blades  are  making  two  hundred 
and  forty  revolutions  a  minute.  Then  you  slowly  pull  the 
left-hand  lever,  which  changes  the  pitch  of  the  rotor  blades 
so  they  bite  more  deeply  into  the  air.  The  helicopter  begins 
to  rise,  and  its  ascent  can  be  controlled  by  changing  the  pitch 
of  the  rotor  blades.  After  you  reach  the  proper  altitude  you 
push  a  center  control  stick  forward.  This  stick  tilts  the  rotor 
blades  slightly.  They  bite  the  air  in  a  forward  motion  and  the 
helicopter  begins  to  move.  Except  for  ascending  and  descend- 
ing, all  movements  of  the  helicopter  are  controlled  by  the 
center  stick. 

When  you  reach  your  destination  and  want  to  descend 
you  pull  back  the  center  stick.  The  craft  comes  to  a  stop  and 
hovers  over  one  spot.  Then  you  release  the  lift  lever,  the  rotor 
blades  bite  less  powerfully  at  the  air,  and  the  helicopter  sinks 
slowly  to  the  earth.  You  can  descend  at  the  rate  of  one  foot 


Your  Flying  Flivver  63 

a  minute  if  necessary,  and  maneuver  to  the  right,  left,  or  back- 
ward and  forward,  by  manipulating  the  center  stick.  You  can 
spend  as  much  time  as  you  need  in  landing,  backing  up,  or 
shifting  sideways  to  park  in  a  tight  spot. 

What  about  weather  conditions?  Suppose  you  run  into  a 
fog?  Well,  you  can  descend  at  a  snail's  pace  to  check  your 
location,  and  even  use  a  flashlight  to  study  road  signs  while 
the  helicopter  hovers  near  the  ground.  If  an  obstruction  sud- 
denly looms  up  in  front  of  you,  a  pull  on  the  center  stick 
and  an  adjustment  of  the  lift  lever  permit  the  helicopter 
to  climb  straight  up  or  settle  straight  down  and  avoid  a 
crash. 

If  your  engine  quits,  a  clutch  automatically  disengages  the 
rotor  blades.  They  continue  to  spin  by  the  air  pressure,  like 
the  rotor  of  an  autogiro.  The  spinning  blades  enable  the  craft 
to  descend  safely  from  any  altitude.  It  can  glide  in  any  direc- 
tion to  a  desired  landing  space  and  then  settle  the  short  dis- 
tance into  it  vertically.  A  heavy  snowfall  will  ground  planes 
and  halt  motor  traffic,  but  the  helicopter  can  rise  directly 
from  the  snow  and  go  anywhere.  An  amphibian  helicopter, 
equipped  with  rubber  pontoons,  can  land  or  take  off  easily 
from  either  water  or  land. 

Sikorsky's  First  Helicopter 

Mr.  Sikorsky  designed  his  first  helicopter  at  Kiev,  Russia, 
in  1908.  An  extraordinary  child-genius,  and  the  son  of  a  pro- 
fessor of  psychology  at  Kiev  University,  the  young  Russian's 
first  designs  were  regarded  with  interest  and  curiosity  by  gov- 
ernment officials.  He  was  encouraged  to  go  ahead  with  his 
work.  But  he  had  difficulty  in  obtaining  the  proper  materials, 
and  when  he  had  finally  assembled  the  odd-looking  craft 
(contrived  of  a  variety  of  unorthodox  materials)  it  merely 
flopped  around  like  a  hen  with  her  head  off.  He  tried  again 


64  Miracles  Ahead! 

and  failed  a  second  time.  When  the  first  world  war  com- 
menced he  turned  to  the  designing  of  huge  land  planes. 
Officials  of  the  War  Department  remembered  the  tall  blue- 
eyed  young  man  from  Kiev  and,  disregarding  his  tender  years, 
ordered  the  construction  of  four  hundred  of  his  bombing 
planes.  He  was  then  eighteen  years  old. 

Faith  in  Sikorsky's  designs  was  engendered  not  merely  by 
the  performance  of  his  model  but  by  his  personal  history.  He 
had  possessed  not  only  a  phenomenal  mechanical  bent  as  a 
small  child  but  a  remarkable  intellectual  development.  He 
graduated  from  college  at  an  age  when  most  youngsters  are 
still  in  the  preparatory  grades.  At  eighteen  he  was  a  mature 
and  experienced  inventor.  Faith  in  his  machines  proved  jus- 
tified, for  of  the  four  hundred  bombers  only  two  were  lost 
during  the  war! 

When  the  Revolution  of  1917  commenced,  Sikorsky  came 
to  America  and  continued  to  build  successful  planes.  But  he 
had  not  given  up  his  idea  for  a  direct-lift  machine.  In  1939  his 
helicopter  flew.  By  1943  he  had  made  eighteen  major  changes 
in  the  craft.  The  first  helicopter  carried  three  forty-six-inch 
radius  propellers  at  the  tail  for  control.  All  three  propellers 
had  variable-pitch  blades  controllable  by  the  stick  in  the 
cockpit  of  the  craft.  In  1941  the  main  rotor  was  changed  so 
that  the  pitch  of  the  individual  blades  could  be  varied  as  they 
passed  each  side  of  the  ship.  Additional  work  resulted  in  a 
refinement  of  the  main  rotor  so  that  the  pitch  of  the  individ- 
ual blades  could  be  varied  throughout  its  entire  circuit.  Each 
blade  can,  for  example,  be  made  to  decrease  pitch  as  it  passes 
the  front  of  the  ship  and  to  increase  pitch  as  it  passes  over 
the  tail.  This  tilts  the  rotor  forward  and  causes  the  ship  to 
move  forward.  The  brilliant  engineering  work  on  the  main 
rotor  permitted  Sikorsky  to  eliminate  two  of  the  propellers 
on  the  tail  of  his  ship.  Only  one  rotor  in  addition  to  the  main 
one  is  needed,  and  it  faces  sideways  at  the  tail  to  act  as  a  rud- 


Your  Flying  Flivver  65 

der.  He  is,  however  still  working  to  make  the  helicopter  more 
efficient.  In  May,  1943,  United  States  patents  were  issued  on 
two  more  designs  by  Mr.  Sikorsky. 

War  Duties  of  the  Helicopter 

The  helicopter  already  has  taken  over  several  jobs  in  this 
war,  and  may  prove  a  decisive  weapon  against  Axis  subma- 
rines. In  April,  1943,  Captain  Leland  P.  Lovette,  Director  of 
Public  Relations  of  the  Navy,  announced  that  the  five-hun- 
dred-mile "gap"  in  the  mid- Atlantic  where  the  German  sub- 
marines have  been  particularly  successful  was  being  patrolled 
by  ship-based  helicopters.  This  craft  can  stop  in  the  air 
motionless  to  scout  for  surfacing  U-boats,  zigzag  around  easily 
to  avoid  gunfire,  and  then  drop  depth  charges  on  undersea 
raiders.  Or  it  can  fly  at  one  hundred  miles  per  hour  in  mak- 
ing a  patrol  from  a  ship. 

In  a  demonstration  on  Long  Island  Sound,  May  6-7,  1943, 
Colonel  H.  F.  Gregory,  of  Wright  Field,  Ohio,  made  twenty- 
four  landings  and  take-offs  (some  of  them  backward)  from 
the  deck  of  a  tanker  traveling  at  various  speeds.  The  take-off 
space  was  seventy-eight  by  forty-eight  feet.  As  a  result  of 
these  tests,  Rear  Admiral  Howard  L.  Vickery,  vice-chairman 
of  the  Maritime  Commission  and  Deputy  War  Shipping 
Administrator,  said  a  small  deck  would  be  installed  on  Lib- 
erty ships  which  "will  permit  helicopters  to  be  used  at  sea, 
thus  giving  the  ships  added  protection  from  submarines." 

Postwar  Tasks  of  the  Helicopter 

The  Army  has  ordered  three  hundred  helicopters  from  the 
Sikorsky  Division  of  the  United  Aircraft  Corporation.  Officers 
believe  these  rotary-wing  craft  can  serve  to  spot  targets  for 
the  artillery,  lay  telephone  wire  over  impassable  ground,  hover 


66  Miracles  Ahead! 

near  the  ground  while  careful  studies  are  made  of  topography, 
and  rescue  persons  from  crashes  in  inaccessible  places.  The 
helicopter's  work  for  the  Army  during  the  war  should  speed 
the  development  of  a  model  for  civilian  use  when  the  war 
is  over. 

"The  helicopter  may  be  a  vital  factor  in  the  period  of 
demobilization  of  the  aircraft  industry  after  the  war,  permit- 
ting the  utilization  of  facilities  and  the  employment  of  a 
gradually  increasing  part  of  the  trained  personnel  which  will 
become  available,"  declares  Mr.  Sikorsky.  "Once  they  are  in 
mass  production,  helicopters  will  cost  about  as  much  as 
medium-priced  cars,  and  they  are  more  adaptable  to  assembly 
line  methods  than  the  conventional  plane." 

Mr.  Sikorsky  visualizes  a  practical  postwar  helicopter,  seat- 
ing from  twelve  to  twenty  persons,  as  an  "aerial  taxi"  which 
will  meet  the  larger  higher-speed  air  liners  of  today  at  various 
terminals  and  carry  passengers  to  virtually  any  designated 
location.  He  declared  the  helicopter  has  limitless  possibilities 
as  an  aerial  "commuting"  vehicle.  If  Mr.  Sikorsky's  ideas  are 
developed,  they  will  answer  the  complaint  of  one  business- 
man who  told  of  making  a  four-hour  trip  by  air  liner  from 
Chicago  to  New  York  and  then  spending  almost  that  much 
time  battling  New  York  City  traffic  from  La  Guardia  Field 
to  his  home  across  the  Hudson  River  in  New  Jersey.  The 
helicopter's  ability  to  operate  in  crowded  areas,  and  still  avoid 
traffic  jams,  should  make  it  increasingly  popular  in  large  cities. 

The  Sikorsky  helicopter  is  not  designed  for  high-speed, 
long-range  transportation  of  heavy  loads.  It  may  never  carry 
more  than  twelve  to  twenty  persons  or  their  equivalent  in 
freight.  The  top  speed  of  the  Sikorsky  helicopter  will  prob- 
ably be  around  one  hundred  and  forty  to  one  hundred  and 
fifty  miles  per  hour.  It  will,  however,  take  over  short  hauls  of 
light  freight  and  express. 

"There  will  be  special  delivery  of  perishable  food  to  your 


Your  Flying  Flivver  67 

home,"  declares  Mr.  Sikorsky.  "By  the  use  of  a  helicopter 
shuttle  service,  oranges  that  yesterday  were  on  the  trees  in 
Florida  and  California  will  be  moved  today  to  the  big  air- 
freight terminals  and  dropped  off.  They  will  then  reach  your 
grocer  the  next  day  by  the  freight-helicopter  connecting 
lines  to  small  centers  of  the  population — and  from  your  grocer 
they  will  come  to  your  door  by  his  helicopter  service." 

It  seems  more  than  probable  that  helicopters  will  also  expe- 
dite the  settlement  of  vast  areas  of  land  in  this  country  that 
are  as  yet  sparsely  populated,  and  incidentally  increase  the 
value  of  summer-resort  property  within  a  radius  of  three  hun- 
dred miles  of  the  large  cities.  That  cabin  in  the  mountains 
that  you  would  visit  more  often  if  the  trip  did  not  mean  such 
a  long  drive  will  become  accessible  within  a  couple  of  hours 
by  helicopter. 

"I  am  convinced,"  Mr.  Sikorsky  declared,  "that  within  a 
decade  after  the  war  there  will  be  hundreds  of  thousands,  and 
possibly  a  million,  helicopters  in  actual  use  in  this  country." 

This  prediction  seems  reasonable  enough — considering  that 
Mr.  Sikorsky  is  making  it  about  a  machine  of  his  own  design. 
It  is  well  known  among  designers  that  Sikorsky  has  a  mania 
about  making  his  planes  safe  to  fly.  This  is  nothing  new.  He 
was  fuming  and  fretting  about  adding  safety  measures  and 
devices  to  his  huge  land  planes  back  in  the  early  days  of  the 
first  World  War  when  most  designers  were  still  congratulat- 
ing themselves  that  the  flying  machine  would  actually  stay  in 
the  air  for  a  reasonable  period.  Evidences  of  this  fetish  are  to 
be  found  in  every  plane  he  ever  designed,  including  the  fighter 
planes. 

The  De  Bothezat  Helicopter 

Stranger-looking  and  more  revolutionary  in  design  than 
Sikorsky's  helicopter  is  the  new-type  helicopter  designed  and 


68  Miracles  Ahead! 

built  by  George  de  Bothezat,  the  Russian-born  inventor  who 
built  the  world's  first  successful  man-carrying  helicopter,  in 
1922,  for  the  United  States  Army. 

De  Bothezat's  all-metal  ship,  the  GB-5,  has  twin  rotors 
which  turn  in  opposite  directions.  They  are  placed  one  above 
the  other  with  the  motor  between  them.  The  coaxial  rotors 
overcome  the  tendency  of  the  body  of  the  plane  to  spin  and 
no  tail  rotor  is  required  for  steering  or  counteracting  torque. 

The  controls  determine  the  plane's  direction  and  attitude 
of  flight  in  the  same  manner  as  do  those  of  the  Sikorsky- 
designed  helicopter.  The  advantage  of  the  De  Bothezat  craft 
lies  in  its  greater  lifting  power,  which,  understandably,  in- 
creases with  the  number  of  lifting  surfaces.  There  appears  to 
be  no  reason  why  the  De  Bothezat  helicopter  cannot  be  made 
to  travel  as  fast  as  any  conventional  airplane  of  equal  capacity. 
It  is  reasonable  to  suppose  that  multirotored  ships,  incorpo- 
rating the  De  Bothezat  design,  can  be  built  to  carry  three  hun- 
dred passengers  at  a  speed  of  three  hundred  and  fifty  miles 
per  hour. 

The  Helicab 

William  B.  Stout,  director  of  research  for  Consolidated 
Vultee,  has  designed  three  distinct  types  of  aircraft  for  post- 
war civilian  use,  among  them  his  "Helicab"  of  helicopter 
design.  This  flying  flivver  will  be  about  twenty-five  feet  long, 
six  feet  wide,  and  eight  feet  high.  The  rounded  plastic  nose 
of  the  teardrop-shaped  fuselage  will  enable  the  passengers — 
two  to  five — to  see  out  on  all  sides.  Its  one  hundred  and 
twenty-five  horsepower  engine  will  be  of  conventional  design 
but  lighter  in  weight.  Torque  will  be  counteracted  by  the 
rotation  of  a  vertically  mounted  propeller  on  the  tail.  As  in 
any  other  helicopter,  direction  of  flight  will  be  controlled  by 
adjusting  the  pitch  of  the  main  rotor.  However,  a  simplified 


Your  Flying  Flivver  69 

method  of  changing  the  blade  angle  is  featured  in  Stout's 
craft. 


The  Autogiro 

"What  is  the  difference  between  the  autogiro  and  the  heli- 
copter?" you  may  wonder. 

The  autogiro  has  a  propeller  in  front  like  an  ordinary  plane, 
plus  wings  on  top  which  revolve  as  the  propeller  pulls  the 
plane  through  the  air.  These  wings  revolve  solely  as  the  result 
of  the  plane's  motion  through  the  air.  The  helicopter  has  no 
propeller  in  front.  Its  engine  is  attached  directly  to  the  blades 
on  top,  which  enable  it  to  ascend  and  descend  vertically.  The 
autogiro  is  easier  to  Candle  than  the  conventional  plane.  It 
takes  off  and  lands  in  small  places.  But  it  is  not  as  controllable 
as  the  helicopter. 

The  Pitcairn-Larsen  Autogiro  Company  manufactures  a 
craft  that  takes  a  smooth  hop,  skip,  and  jump  in  getting  off 
the  ground.  If  the  motor  fails,  the  revolving  blades  let  the 
plane  down  gently.  These  blades  can  also  be  folded  back  to 
convert  the  autogiro  into  a  passenger  car. 

The  Convertaplane 

Proponents  of  the  Convertaplane  say  that  everything  we 
have  written  about  the  helicopter  is  doubly  true  of  this  half- 
helicopter-half-plane  invented  and  developed  by  Gerard  P. 
Herrick,  noted  aeronautical  engineer  and  instructor  in  the 
United  States  Army  Air  Corps  during  the  first  World  War. 

Like  the  helicopter,  the  Convertaplane  will  hover  in  mid- 
air, climb  straight  up,  or  settle  slowly  down;  but  it  will  also 
convert  from  a  rotary- wing  craft  to  a  three  hundred-mile-an- 
hour  airplane  in  mid-air.  The  Convertaplane  looks  like  the 
conventional  biplane,  but  there  is  a  big  difference.  The  slim 


70  Miracles  Ahead! 

upper  wing  can  be  released  for  rotation  like  the  blades  of  the 
helicopter.  This  upper  wing  is  specially  designed  so  that  when 
whirling  it  presents  the  same  shape  in  cross  section  both  com- 
ing and  going.  The  newest  Convertaplane  design  eliminates 
the  bottom  wing — thus  making  the  ship  a  full-fledged  helicop- 
ter when  the  rotor  wing  is  turning,  and  an  airplane  with  no 
trace  of  helicopter  about  it  when  the  rotor  wing  is  locked 
crosswise  for  high-speed  flight.  Future  models  of  this  ship  also 
will  be  equipped  so  they  can  be  converted  into  an  automobile 
for  short  trips  about  town. 

Mr.  Herrick  promises  that  the  postwar  Convertaplane  will 
let  you  have  your  cake  and  eat  it  too.  You  might  want  a 
high-speed  plane  for  cross-country  trips,  while  your  wife 
argues  for  a  helicopter  to  use  for  shopping  trips  and  visits  to 
friends  in  the  next  county.  Both  can  be  satisfied  by  this  half- 
helicopter-half-plane. 

New  Light  Planes 

Like  the  many  thousands  of  young  fliers  in  the  armed  forces 
who  will  be  returning  to  civilian  life  after  the  war,  you  may 
prefer  a  regular  plane  for  pleasure  flying — and  your  chief 
interest  in  a  "flying  flivver"  is  price. 

William  Stout  believes  the  low-cost  plane  depends  on  the 
development  of  a  hundred-dollar,  hundred-horsepower,  hun- 
dred-pound aviation  engine  with  cylinders  arranged  in  the 
"flat-opposed"  style  for  greater  streamlining.  Stout  proposes 
a  two-speed  propeller  to  help  the  engine  get  the  plane  into 
the  air  quickly.  Combat  planes  use  adjustable-pitch  hydro- 
matic  or  electric  propellers,  which  are  about  as  complicated 
as  an  ordinary  auto  engine  and  hence  too  expensive  for  the 
low-cost,  light  plane. 

W.  T.  Piper,  of  the  Piper  Aircraft  Company,  favors  lower- 
powered  engines  of  fifty  to  ninety  horsepower,  which  will 


Your  Flying  Flivver  71 

permit  the  construction  of  low-cost  airplanes  priced  at  a  dol- 
lar a  pound — 2,000  pound  plane,  $2,000;  1,000  pound  plane, 
$1,000.  He  argues  that  you  will  get  plenty  of  speed,  as  well 
as  low  operating  cost,  with  a  low-powered  engine,  if  the 
plane  itself  is  properly  streamlined  to  reduce  costly  drag.  He 
estimates  that  a  retractable  landing  gear,  which  draws  the 
wheels  inside  the  wings,  will  increase  the  plane's  speed  by 
twenty  to  thirty  miles  per  hour.  In  the  past  only  a  few  makers 
of  light  planes  have  installed  retractable  landing  gears  because 
of  their  expense.  But  mass-production  methods  will  greatly 
reduce  the  cost  per  plane. 

Stout's  Sky  Cars 

In  addition  to  the  "Helicab,"  William  Stout  has  drawn  up 
plans  for  two  new  light  planes — the  "Readable  Airplane"  and 
the  "Aerocar,"  mass  production  of  which  is  anticipated  after 
the  war. 

The  Roadable  Airplane  is  intended  for  distance  flights  cou- 
pled with  short  trips  on  the  ground.  It  will  weigh  no  more 
than  eight  hundred  pounds,  have  a  thirty-foot  wingspread, 
and  be  capable  of  taking  four-hundred-mile  cross-country 
hops.  Since  the  Roadable  Airplane  is  primarily  an  airplane  and 
not  a  car,  its  best  performance  will  be  attained  in  flight.  There 
it  will  reach  speeds  of  one  hundred  and  twenty  miles  per  hour, 
while  on  the  ground  its  speed  will  perhaps  be  limited  to  thirty- 
five  miles  per  hour. 

The  unique  feature  of  the  Roadable  Airplane  is  that  the 
wings  can  be  folded  back  on  landing.  In  case  the  pilot  should 
run  into  bad  weather,  he  can  simply  convert  his  plane  into  an 
automobile  and  hug  the  ground  until  the  skies  are  clear. 

The  Aerocar  is  designed  as  the  flying  family  automobile  for 
tours  and  trips.  Different  from  the  Roadable  Airplane,  it  is 
not  primarily  an  airplane  but  a  car  that  flies.  It  will  weigh 


72  Miracles  Ahead! 

about  fifteen  hundred  pounds,  have  a  standard  sixty-inch 
wheel  tread,  and  do  sixty  to  seventy  miles  per  hour  on  the 
highway.  The  body  will  be  transparent  to  give  the  passengers 
— it  will  carry  three — a  complete  view  on  all  sides. 

When  a  person  wishes  to  take  to  the  air,  he  backs  the 
Aerocar  into  the  garage  and  attaches  its  combined  wing  and 
outrigger  tail  assembly.  A  pusher  propeller  is  mounted  at  the 
rear.  Once  in  the  air,  the  plane  will  reach  a  speed  of  one  hun- 
dred miles  per  hour,  consuming  the  same  amount  of  fuel  as  it 
would  at  sixty  miles  per  hour  on  the  ground.  It  will  be  able 
to  cruise  for  a  distance  of  two  hundred  and  fifty  miles.  This 
will  undoubtedly  be  the  first  airplane  to  be  equipped  with 
four  wheels. 

Neither  the  Readable  Airplane  nor  the  Aerocar  will  be  as 
practicable  in  congested  city  areas  as  the  Helicab,  but  each 
will  find  its  use. 


Simplified  Flying  Techniques 

All  designers  agree  on  the  importance  of  designing  a  "fool- 
proof" plane  that  will  behave  itself  under  all  sorts  of  condi- 
tions. Of  course,  if  a  person  is  a  poor  automobile  driver  he 
will  be  unhappy  in  a  plane.  But  if  he  can  handle  his  car  skill- 
fully he  will  be  able  to  fly  well.  W.  T.  Piper  promises  that 
the  light  plane  will  be  practically  foolproof  "but  not  darn- 
foolproof." 

A  plane's  control  system  directs  the  course  of  the  ship  by 
changing  the  position  of  parts  of  the  wings  or  the  tail  so  the 
air  strikes  them  at  a  different  angle.  This  permits  the  plane  to 
change  direction  about  any  of  its  three  axes — vertical,  longi- 
tudinal, lateral. 

The  sideways  motion  of  the  plane  about  its  vertical  axis  is 
controlled  by  the  rudder  on  the  tail.  Pressure  on  the  foot 
pedals  moves  the  rudder,  causes  the  air  to  blow  the  tail  to  one 


Your  Flying  flivver  73 

side  or  the  other,  and  makes  the  nose  of  the  plane  swing 
toward  the  side  on  which  pressure  is  applied. 

The  banking,  or  rolling,  motion  of  the  plane  about  its  longi- 
tudinal axis  is  controlled  by  the  ailerons  on  the  wings.  A  side- 
ward movement  of  the  stick  operates  the  ailerons,  causes  the 
air  to  push  one  wing  down  and  the  other  up;  and  the  plane 
banks  in  the  direction  that  the  stick  was  moved. 

The  up-and-down  motion  of  the  plane,  or  motion  about  its 
lateral  axis,  is  controlled  by  the  elevators  on  the  tail.  A  for- 
ward movement  of  the  stick  moves  the  elevators  down.  The 
air  pushes  the  tail  up  and  the  nose  goes  down.  A  backward 
movement  of  the  stick  moves  the  elevators  up.  The  air  pushes 
the  tail  down,  and  the  nose  rises. 

Coordinated  movements  of  the  rudder,  elevators,  and  ail- 
erons can  put  the  plane  in  any  desired  attitude.  Learning  to 
fly  is  merely  the  development  of  skill  in  smoothly  blending 
the  control  pressures  on  stick  and  rudder  pedals  to  direct  the 
course  of  the  plane.  This  is  easy  to  say  and  hard  for  some 
pilots  to  do.  If  they  are  heavy-handed,  or  timid,  in  handling 
the  stick  the  plane  will  do  all  sorts  of  disconcerting  things. 
The  plane  is  like  a  trained  horse  in  that  it  wants  to  feel  that 
the  person  in  charge  really  knows  his  business. 

Each  time  the  pilot  uses  one  control  he  must  carefully 
adjust  some  other  control  or  the  plane  misbehaves.  Use  of  the 
stick  to  bank  the  plane  to  the  right  or  left  will  cause  the  nose 
of  the  plane  to  slew  annoyingly  in  the  opposite  direction 
unless  proper  adjustments  are  made  with  the  pedals  control- 
ling the  rudder  on  the  tail.  For  a  left  turn,  for  example,  a 
slight  pressure  is  applied  to  left  rudder  to  start  the  nose  swing- 
ing and,  at  the  same  time,  the  stick  is  pressed  to  the  left  to 
bank  the  plane.  When  the  desired  degree  of  bank  has  been 
reached,  rudder  pressure  is  relaxed  and  the  stick  returned  to 
neutral  position.  The  plane  will  continue  the  turn.  Recovery 
is  effected  by  pressing  right  rudder  and  bringing  the  stick 


74  Miracles  Ahead! 

to  the  right.  Controls  are  again  returned  to  neutral  as  the  ship 
resumes  its  level  flight  attitude. 

If  you  own  one  of  the  new  light  planes  of  tomorrow  you 
won't  have  to  worry  much  about  the  above  information. 
These  planes — including  the  Ercoupe,  produced  by  Engi- 
neering and  Research  Corporation,  and  the  Skyfarer,  built  by 
the  General  Aircraft  Corporation — provide  a  wheel  control 
which  makes  the  ailerons  and  the  rudder  function  together  in 
a  coordinated  manner.  The  problem  of  banking  the  plane  is 
solved  by  a  simple  twist  of  the  wheel.  This  means  that  you 
will  be  able  to  learn  to  fly  with  greater  ease  and  with  little 
wear  and  tear  on  the  nerves. 

The  first  rule  of  the  air  is  to  maintain  flying  speed.  The 
plane's  wings  provide  lift,  and  if  the  plane  slows  down  too 
much  the  wings  don't  catch  the  air  at  the  proper  angle.  This 
causes  the  plane  to  stall  (fall  rapidly  from  lack  of  flying 
speed).  Many  accidents  are  caused  by  a  too-slow  landing 
approach — if  a  plane  stalls  at  an  altitude  of  fifty  feet  the 
pilot's  chances  of  avoiding  a  crash  are  about  zero.  This  danger 
is  largely  avoided  by  the  new  light  planes.  They  will  be 
equipped  with  wing  flaps,  which  increase  the  lift  of  the  wing 
and  also  act  as  air  brakes  to  slow  the  landing  speed.  Tricycle 
and  four-wheel  landing  gears  will  further  reduce  the  chances 
for  accidents.  They  will  provide  better  visibility  for  take-offs 
and  landings,  keep  the  plane  rolling  straight  on  the  ground, 
and  eliminate  the  danger  of  somersaults. 

Safety  at  Night 

One  of  the  toughest  problems  faced  by  a  pilot  is  that  of 
knowing  the  right  height  at  which  to  cut  his  engine  for  a 
landing.  This  is  particularly  difficult  if  he  is  coming  in  over 
a  darkened  field.  An  invention  on  which  a  United  States  pat- 
ent was  granted  in  1943  should  permit  landings  to  be  made 


Your  Flying  Flivver  75 

with  greater  safety.  This  device  uses  two  beam-projecting 
lamps  under  the  fuselage  to  tell  the  pilot  when  he  is  in  the  cor- 
rect position  for  a  landing.  A  rear  lamp  points  to  the  rear.  They 
are  adjusted  so  that  the  point  at  which  the  beams  cross,  merg- 
ing to  form  a  single  spot  of  light  on  the  ground,  is  the  correct 
height  for  the  pilot  to  set  his  plane  down.  A  mirror  at  the  side 
of  the  cabin  enables  the  pilot  to  pick  up  the  two  spots  and 
to  follow  them  until  finally  they  blend  into  one.  If  they  sepa- 
rate again,  it  is  a  sign  that  either  the  ground  level  or  the 
plane's  altitude  has  changed.  So  the  pilot  knows  that  he  had 
better  try  again  for  a  new  landing  approach. 


VI 

GLOBAL    TRANSPORTATION 

IN  TOMORROW'S  "Age  of  Air"  all  distances  between  places  will 
be  measured  in  terms  of  hours  instead  of  miles.  No  place  on 
earth  will  be  more  than  forty-eight  hours  from  your  local  air- 
port. You  will  be  able  to  spend  your  vacations  in  foreign 
lands  that  heretofore  you  may  have  seen  only  on  motion- 
picture  screens — India,  Egypt,  Australia,  Argentina,  China. 
And  the  cost  of  such  a  vacation  will  be  somewhat  less  than  it 
now  costs  you  to  travel  to  the  other  side  of  the  United  States. 

You  may  go  off  on  this  world  jaunt  in  a  super-Clipper  that 
houses  one  hundred  and  twenty  passengers  in  the  plane's  wing. 
Sixty  people  could  be  comfortably  accommodated  in  the 
dining  salon,  on  the  observation  deck,  and  the  promenade, 
and  in  the  cocktail  lounge.  The  plane  would  have  a  range  of 
five  thousand  miles  at  a  cruising  speed  of  three  hundred  miles 
per  hour.  The  engines  would  be  placed  within  the  structure 
so  that  they  could  be  serviced  or  repaired  while  the  plane  was 
in  flight.  The  super-Clipper  would  carry  a  crew  of  sixteen. 

Just  before  the  war  began,  Pan  American  Airlines  launched 
a  program  for  the  construction  of  fifty  giant  Clippers,  each 
capable  of  carrying  one  hundred  and  fifty-three  passengers. 
The  line  anticipated  a  New  York-to-London  flight  in  ten 
hours  at  a  one-way  fare  of  one  hundred  dollars  for  each 
passenger. 

Glenn  L.  Martin,  president  of  the  Glenn  L.  Martin  Co., 
has  designed  a  250,000  pound  airplane  with  six  or  more 
engines  for  trans-Atlantic  service.  It  would  carry  a  pay  load 
of  fifty  thousand  pounds — the  equivalent  of  one  hundred  pas- 

76 


Global  Transportation  77 

sengers  with  eighty  pounds  of  baggage  apiece,  plus  twenty- 
five  thousand  pounds  of  mail,  cargo,  and  express.  He  esti- 
mates that  the  plane  would  make  the  trip  from  New  York 
to  London  in  thirteen  hours  with  the  wind,  and  in  nineteen 
hours  against  the  wind. 

The  plane  would  have  almost  all  the  comforts  of  a  luxury 
liner — equipped  with  showers  and  baths,  a  lounge  where 
games  could  be  played,  and  observation  rooms. 

An  idea  of  the  tremendous  size  of  the  250,000  pound  plane 
is  gained  by  a  study  of  another  Martin  plane,  the  140,000 
pound  Mars  Flying  Boat,  which  was  built  for  the  United 
States  Navy.  The  Mars  was  originally  designed  as  a  patrol 
bomber,  but  has  been  converted  for  cargo  use.  It  has  four 
Wright  Cyclone  engines,  and  its  fuel  capacity  is  about  a  tank- 
car  load. 

The  flight  deck  of  the  Mars  is  larger  than  the  interior  of 
a  twenty-one-passenger  airliner.  Auxiliary  motors  drive  eight 
generators  supplying  electricity,  and  there  are  twenty-four 
telephone  stations  on  the  plane  for  the  crew  of  eleven  men. 
Each  of  the  Mars'  twin  rudders  is  twice  as  tall  as  a  tall  man, 
and  between  them  are  thirty-foot  elevators.  Each  aileron  is 
longer  than  the  entire  wing  span  of  an  average  fighter 
plane. 

The  f  arsighted  designer  of  the  Mars  is  confident  that  domes- 
tic air  travel  will  boom  when  the  war  is  over.  "But  the  spec- 
tacular development  will  be  in  the  ocean  field — the  field  of 
flying  ships  that  will  grow  larger  and  larger.  With  them  we 
shall  rehabilitate  a  weary  world,  draw  it  closer  together, 
re-establish  the  broken  threads  of  commerce,  cross  the  last 
frontiers  of  isolation."  He  added,  "There  is  no  technical  limit 
to  the  size  of  planes;  the  only  limit  is  the  amount  of  payload 
available.  We  should  be  able  to  build  5oo,ooo-pound  air- 
planes in  a  few  years." 

W.  W.  Davies,  research  engineer  of  United  Airlines,  wants 


78  Miracles  Ahead! 

the  aviation  industry  to  strike  out  and  design  a  new  and  much 
larger  luxury  air  liner  for  domestic  passenger  service.  He 
envisions  a  four-engined,  sixty-three-and-one-half-ton  passen- 
ger plane  with  a  cruising  speed  of  two  hundred  and  sixty-six 
miles  per  hour  and  a  range  of  twenty-five  hundred  miles.  Its 
engines  would  probably  produce  three  thousand  horsepower 
each.  By  day  this  de  luxe  plane  would  seat  one  hundred  pas- 
sengers and  at  night  would  have  sleeping  accommodations  for 
fifty-six.  There  would  be  a  comfortable  lounge  for  passengers. 

This  engineer  also  predicts  the  development  of  another 
four-engined  forty-ton  plane  which  would  offer  service  com- 
parable to  that  in  "club"  or  better-class  railway-coach  travel 
and  would  make  more  stops  than  the  de  luxe  plane.  Finally 
Mr.  Davies  favors  the  construction  of  a  twenty-one-ton,  twin- 
engined  plane  to  serve  as  a  "variable  load  carrier."  It  would 
carry  either  passengers  or  cargo  or  both,  and  operate  on 
feeder  lines  running  from  small  towns  and  cities  to  the  main 
routes  of  the  air  lines.  A  bulkhead  would  divide  the  passenger 
and  cargo  space  in  this  plane  and  could  be  adjusted  accord- 
ing to  the  number  of  passengers  or  cargo  to  be  carried. 

Edward  Warner,  vice-chairman  of  the  Civil  Aeronautics 
Board,  agrees  that  passengers  are  likely  to  prefer  one  hundred- 
passenger  planes  to  those  carrying  only  twenty-five.  But  he 
warns  that  the  larger  planes  will  reduce  the  flexibility  of  the 
air  lines'  service.  He  explains  that  four  twenty-five-passenger 
planes  can  give  one  hundred  passengers  nonstop  service  to 
four  different  points,  while  one  one  hundred-passenger  giant 
can  give  nonstop  service  to  only  one  point. 

Mr.  Warner  also  contends  that  the  length  of  nonstop  flights 
and  the  speed  of  air  liners  must  be  carefully  considered  if 
air  lines  want  to  cut  passenger  fares  to  three  cents  a  mile  or 
less.  A  six  hundred-mile  flight  can  be  made  at  an  operating 
cost  of  twenty-two  cents  a  ton-mile,  whereas  a  two  thousand- 
mile  flight  costs  thirty  cents  per  ton-mile  mainly  because  of 


Global  Transportation  79 

the  extra  load  of  gasoline  which  must  be  carried.  The  most 
economical  air  speed  at  moderate  altitudes,  he  adds,  is  likely 
to  remain  below  one  hundred  and  eighty  miles  per  hour. 
A  four-hour  flight  from  Chicago  to  New  York  costs  forty 
dollars,  while  a  two-hour  flight  would  cost  sixty  dollars.  Mr. 
Warner  wonders  whether  people  will  pay  an  extra  twenty 
dollars  to  save  two  hours'  flying  time. 

Manufacturers  have  different  ideas  about  the  size  of  future 
sky  liners.  One  concrete  piece  of  evidence  is  the  huge  four 
hundred-passenger  craft  of  Consolidated  Vultee.  A  mock  up 
of  this  plane  has  been  built,  and  the  problems  of  constructing 
such  a  giant  air  liner  are  being  solved  by  Consolidated  engi- 
neers. 

New  Shipping  Centers 

The  flat  mercator-type  map  no  longer  tells  the  story  of  dis- 
tances in  the  coming  Age  of  Air.  On  this  map  the  shortest 
route  between  Washington  and  Tokyo  appears  to  lie  close 
to  San  Francisco.  Pilots  know,  however,  that  the  shortest 
route  is  a  "Great  Circle"  course  which  passes  over  the  Great 
Lakes,  across  Canada,  and  skirts  Siberia.  And  the  shortest 
route  from  Washington  to  Moscow  via  the  "Great  Circle" 
course  just  misses  Greenland.  Because  the  world's  most  impor- 
tant nations  lie  in  the  Northern  Hemisphere,  these  "Great 
Circle"  routes  pass  near  or  across  the  North  Pole.  The  icy 
Arctic  regions  will  become  the  "crossroads  of  commerce"  in 
the  postwar  Age  of  Air. 

"When  we  use  the  globe  and  'Great  Circle'  measurements," 
says  Colonel  Edward  S.  Evans,  president  of  Evans  Products 
Company,  "we  find  the  Arctic  Ocean,  not  the  Atlantic,  is  the 
sea  to  be  flown  over.  The  Arctic  becomes  a  Mediterranean 
between  the  Eastern  and  Western  hemispheres.  Chicago, 
Detroit,  Cleveland,  Cincinnati,  and  other  western  cities  are 


80  Miracles  Ahead! 

going  to  come  into  their  own  as  great  shipping  centers  and  1 
can  vision  the  day  when  America  will  have  a  great  port  in 
Alaska  which  will  supersede  in  importance  our  present  great 
shipping  centers.  It  could  be  the  New  York  of  tomorrow." 

$10,000,000  Seadromes 

C.  Bedell  Monro,  president  of  Pennsylvania  Central  Air- 
lines, would  not  use  long-range  super-Clippers  for  trans- 
Atlantic  service.  He  contends  that  high-speed  passenger  travel 
across  the  Atlantic  would  be  made  safer  and  less  expensive 
by  the  building  of  a  "seadrome"  route  between  the  United 
States  and  Great  Britain.  Penn  Central  has  filed  with  the  CAB 
an  application  to  fly  the  route,  in  which  three  steel  floating 
islands  would  be  spaced  at  eight  hundred-mile  intervals  across 
the  Atlantic.  The  three  "man-made  islands"  would  each  cost 
ten  million  dollars. 

Mr.  Monro  asserts  that  the  short  eight  hundred-mile  hop 
between  the  seadromes  means  vastly  increased  passenger  and 
cargo-carrying  capacity  because  less  gasoline  would  have  to 
be  carried.  Two-  or  four-engined  planes  carrying  forty-two 
to  seventy-two  passengers  could  be  used.  Only  the  same 
amount  of  gasoline  would  be  required  that  now  is  used  in 
making  jumps  of  equal  length  overland.  Passenger  rates  per 
mile,  therefore,  would  be  about  the  same. 

The  seadrome  was  invented  by  Edward  R.  Armstrong,  a 
construction  engineer  of  Philadelphia.  Each  "island"  would 
stand  seventy  feet  above  sea  level,  and  floats  one  hundred  and 
sixty  feet  beneath  the  water  would  keep  the  seadrome  "as 
steady  as  the  mainland  itself,"  said  Mr.  Armstrong.  Each  sea- 
drome, weighing  sixty-four  thousand  tons,  would  have  com- 
plete airport  and  refueling  facilities  and  a  hotel  where  a 
traveler  could  stay  if  he  wanted  to  wait  for  a  later  plane. 

The  Sun  Shipbuilding  &  Drydock  Company  maintains  that 


Global  Transportation  81 

it  will  construct  the  seadromes  just  as  soon  as  steel  is  available. 
Associated  with  the  Sun  Corporation  are  United  States  Steel 
Corporation,  the  Wirth  Steel  Company,  the  Belmont  Iron 
Works,  and  John  A.  Roebling  Company. 

Penn  Central  wishes  to  fly  the  route,  but  Mr.  Monro 
stressed  the  fact  that  all  air  lines — even  private  flyers — would 
be  permitted  to  use  the  seadromes.  "Our  seadrome  idea  has 
been  proved  sound,"  he  added,  "and  we  hope  to  get  permis- 
sion to  install  them  as  soon  as  victory  has  been  won.  Immediate 
postwar  employment  for  thousands  in  the  steel  mills  and  ship- 
building yards,  in  their  construction  and  transportation  to 
fixed  points  at  sea,  will  result.  When  successfully  installed  and 
in  operation  the  seadromes  will  give  valuable  aid  to  shipping 
by  providing  hour-by-hour  weather  reports  and  forecasts 
never  before  obtainable.  Light  planes  for  iceberg  spotting  also 
could  operate  from  the  seadromes.  Plans  no  doubt  will  be 
developed  for  more  and  more  of  them — for  the  Caribbean, 
Pacific,  South  Atlantic  and  everywhere  they  can  be  put  to 
good  use  and  for  use  of  all." 

Passenger  Stratoliners 

In  the  not-too-distant  future,  passenger-carrying  strato- 
liners  that  fly  at  forty  thousand  feet,  far  above  storms  and 
dangerous  icing  regions,  will  be  used  extensively  for  global 
service.  A  number  of  new  inventions  now  make  this  type  of 
service  feasible.  One  is  a  device  patented  April,  1943,  that 
prevents  the  formation  of  ice  on  the  leading  edges  of  wings 
and  propellers.  It  mounts  a  pair  of  infrared  radiators  on  the 
sides  of  the  plane's  nose.  They  are  focused  to  throw  their 
beams  on  the  leading  edges  of  the  wings.  This  "sun-lamp" 
treatment  keeps  the  wings  warmed  above  the  icing  tempera- 
ture at  all  times.  (The  most  dangerous  temperatures  for  the 
formation  of  ice  on  airplanes  are  those  between  20  and  34 


82  Miracles  Ahead! 

degrees  Fahrenheit.)  Smaller  radiators  are  recessed  in  the  pro- 
peller hub  to  keep  the  blades  free  of  ice. 

Another  invention  long  in  use  but  now  more  highly  devel- 
oped is  the  supercharger. 

If  you  have  ever  been  on  a  high  mountain  you  will  remem- 
ber that  the  "thinness"  of  the  air  forced  you  to  breathe  harder 
and  deeper.  The  lungs  are  flexible  enough  to  make  it  possible, 
within  certain  limits,  to  compensate  for  the  thinness  of  the 
air  and  get  enough  oxygen  by  breathing  in  more  air.  This  is 
nature's  way  of  "supercharging"  the  human  engine. 

To  understand  the  all-important  supercharger  we  should 
first  remember  that  we  live  at  the  bottom  of  a  vast  ocean  of 
air.  Since  the  pressure  of  the  air  upon  the  outside  of  our  bod- 
ies is  equalized  by  the  internal  pressures  of  the  body,  we  often 
forget  that  air  has  weight  and  exercises  pressure.  Designers  of 
internal-combustion  engines  are  very  much  aware  that  the  air 
exerts  a  pressure  of  fourteen  and  seven-tenths  pounds  per 
square  inch  at  sea  level. 

Because  the  air  at  higher  altitudes  contains  less  oxygen  per 
cubic  foot,  and  there  is  less  pressure  available  for  pushing  the 
air  into  the  cylinders,  the  power  of  a  gasoline  engine  declines 
in  relation  to  altitude.  At  twenty  thousand  feet  a  cubic  foot 
of  air  weighs  only  about  half  as  much  as  a  cubic  foot  at  sea 
level.  If  the  engine  is  to  get  the  same  air  pressure  at  twenty 
thousand  feet  as  at  sea  level,  we  must  give  it  twice  as  much  of 
the  thinner  air.  This  is  what  the  supercharger  does.  When  the 
engine  "gets  out  of  breath"  at  high  altitudes  the  supercharger 
forces  extra  air  into  its  cylinders. 

The  turbosupercharger  was  perfected  by  Dr.  Sanford  B. 
Moss  of  General  Electric.  Since  one  part  of  the  device  oper- 
ates in  an  arctic  sixty-below-zero  while  the  other  spins  in  a 
blistering  1,500  degrees  of  heat,  the  turbosupercharger  is  an 
engineering  masterpiece. 


Global  Transportation  83 

High-altitude  planes  are  greatly  aided  by  hydromatic  or 
electrically  controlled  propellers,  which  automatically  control 
the  pitch  of  the  blades  to  permit  the  engine  to  operate  at  its 
greatest  efficiency.  For  take-off  the  blade  pitch  is  low  to  let 
the  engine  attain  full  power.  In  high  pitch  the  blades  bite  into 
the  air  at  a  greater  angle,  and  thus  maintain  thrust  in  thinner 
air.  The  high-pitch  blades  also  prevent  overspeeding  of  the 
engine  when  the  plane  is  in  level  flight. 

The  speed  at  which  the  tip  of  the  propeller  blade  turns  must 
be  kept  below  the  speed  of  sound — about  seven  hundred  and 
fifty  miles  per  hour — or  there  will  be  an  enormous  increase 
in  drag.  The  air  fails  to  behave  in  its  usual  manner.  The  pres- 
sure generated  at  the  forward  point  cannot  get  out  of  the 
way  and  so  must  be  carried  along  by  the  moving  object.  To 
make  it  possible  for  both  the  propeller  and  the  engine  to  turn 
at  their  most  suitable  speeds,  a  set  of  reduction  gears  is  built 
into  the  nose  section  of  the  engine.  The  gears  slow  down  the 
propeller  to  fifty  to  seventy-five  revolutions  for  each  one 
hundred  of  the  engine. 

How  can  the  pilot  of  a  high-altitude  plane  be  protected? 
We  have  noted  that  a  person's  lungs  are  flexible  enough  for 
him  to  compensate  for  the  thinness  of  air  at  high  altitudes  by 
breathing  in  more  air.  This  "supercharging"  operation  works 
satisfactorily  within  certain  limits.  A  healthy  pilot  has  no 
trouble  getting  enough  air  in  his  lungs  at  ten  thousand  feet. 
But  at  twelve  thousand  feet  a  mask  is  needed  to  supply  oxy- 
gen or  the  flyer  loses  efficiency.  Because  of  the  reduced  air 
pressure,  the  higher  the  pilot  goes  the  more  need  there  is  for 
oxygen  to  keep  him  normal.  Above  twenty-five  thousand  feet 
the  air  is  so  thin  that  it  is  impossible  to  whistle.  At  thirty-three 
thousand  feet  the  pilot  must  be  breathing  100  per  cent  pure 
oxygen  or  he  will  die. 

If  the  pilot  continues  to  go  higher,  he  does  not  get  enough 


84  Miracles  Ahead! 

oxygen  even  though  he  is  breathing  pure  oxygen.  This  hap- 
pens because  the  pressure  above  thirty-three  thousand  feet  is 
so  low  that  the  lungs  cannot  breathe  in  enough  oxygen  even 
from  a  pure  supply.  At  thirty  thousand  feet  the  air  pres- 
sure is  only  30  per  cent  of  what  it  is  at  sea  level,  and  only  19 
per  cent  of  the  pressure  at  forty  thousand.  At  sixty  thousand 
feet  the  boiling  point  is  so  low  that  blood  boils. 

At  around  35,300  feet  (the  tropopause)  the  temperature 
becomes  fixed  at  67  degrees  below  zero.  This  upper  region  of 
the  atmosphere  is  known  as  the  stratosphere.  It  is  a  "weather- 
less"  region,  free  from  clouds  and  with  no  strong  vertical  air 
currents. 

In  1936  Squadron  Leader  Swain  of  the  R.A.F.  conquered 
the  stratosphere.  He  reached  an  altitude  of  49,144  feet,  wear- 
ing a  pressure  suit  made  of  rubberized  fabric  with  a  rubber 
helmet.  A  pump  kept  the  suit  inflated  with  pure  oxygen  at  the 
proper  pressure.  Flight  Lieutenant  Adam  of  the  R.A.F.  later 
flew  to  53,937  feet  using  the  same  suit,  and  in  1938  an  Italian 
aviator  set  a  world  record  of  56,047. 

The  pressure  suit  has  the  advantage  of  adding  little  weight 
to  the  plane;  but  the  suit  still  does  not  supply  adequate  pres- 
sure with  full  efficiency,  and  the  pilot  is  so  bundled  up  that 
his  movements  are  awkward. 

In  1937  the  United  States  Army  developed  the  first  success- 
ful pressure  cabin  and  took  attention  away  from  the  pressure 
suit.  The  pressure  cabin  is  ideal  for  the  crew.  An  aviator's 
movements  are  not  hampered  by  a  bundlesome  pressure  suit. 
The  Boeing  Stratoliner — a  commercial  adaptation  of  the 
Flying  Fortress — was  equipped  with  a  pressurized  cabin  for 
transcontinental  flights  at  twenty  thousand  feet  and  for  Pan 
American's  fast  flights  over  the  Andes  in  South  America. 

The  pressurized  cabin  did,  however,  have  a  serious  defect 
for  military  use.  A  few  bullets  could  destroy  the  effect  of  the 


,    Global  Transportation  85 

pressure  cabin  and  knock  out  the  crew.  Work  is  being  rushed 
to  make  pressure  cabins  bullet-sealing  like  the  fuel  tanks  of 
combat  planes. 

During  the  Battle  of  Britain  the  late  Sir  Frederick  Banting, 
codiscoverer  of  insulin,  said,  "Whichever  power  gets  up  to 
40,000  feet  first  and  can  stay  there  longest  with  the  heaviest 
guns  will  win  the  war."  Early  in  1943  there  were  indications 
that  the  Germans  were  ready  to  make  a  desperate  bid  for 
aerial  supremacy  with  fighter  planes  equipped  with  pressurized 
cabins.  In  November,  1942,  the  British  reported  that  a  Ger- 
man reconnaissance  plane  was  shot  down  by  a  Spitfire  at  fifty 
thousand  feet.  The  installation  of  heavy  pressurized  cabins 
on  light  fighter  planes  is  considered  an  outstanding  achieve- 
ment. Experts,  however,  believe  that  these  cabins  will  be 
used  more  extensively  on  huge  new  bombers.  There  have 
been  frequent  reports  that  the  Army  is  preparing  to  bring 
out  a  giant  bomber  that  will  be  able  to  carry  destruction  to 
the  enemy  at  altitudes  far  beyond  the  reach  of  antiaircraft 
defenses  and  fighter  planes.  In  hinting  of  the  new  bomber 
General  H.  H.  Arnold,  Air  Forces  Commander,  remarked 
that  the  6-24  Liberators  and  the  B-iy  Flying  Fortresses  were 
the  "last  of  the  small  bombers"!  1 


Air  Cargo 

Public  confidence  in  the  safety  and  efficiency  of  air  trans- 
port will  bring  a  vast  expansion  of  air-cargo  business  in  post- 
war years.  All  forms  of  transportation  have  found  that  while 

1The  New  York  Times  reported  from  Washington  on  November  4, 
1943,  that  the  "final  test"  of  the  Army's  new  superbomber,  the  6-29,  "is  not 
now  far  distant,"  according  to  General  H.  H.  Arnold.  The  6-29  was  devel- 
oped by  Boeing,  the  originator  of  the  B-iy  Flying  Fortress.  General  Arnold 
said  the  6-29  "will  have  a  range  substantially  greater  than  the  maximum 
effective  range  of  today's  longest-range  heavy  bombers." 


86  Miracles  Ahead! 

passenger  revenue  was  considered  the  main  source  of  income 
at  first  freight  revenue  eventually  exceeded  it.  In  1941  about 
5  per  cent  of  the  air  lines'  revenue  came  from  air  express — 
or  around  i  per  cent  of  the  railway  express  shipped.  Thus  the 
air  lines'  express  business  can  be  greatly  expanded  and  still 
not  make  too  much  of  a  cut  in  railroad  business. 

The  case  of  the  airplane  as  a  cargo  carrier  is  one  of  simple 
arithmetic  according  to  Wolfgang  Langewiesche.  "An  air- 
plane can  make  20  round  trips  while  ground  transport  makes 
one,"  he  explains.  "One  ton  of  cargo  space  in  an  airplane  is 
therefore  worth  20  in  a  train  or  a  truck,  even  without  count- 
ing the  value  of  time  saved  for  the  load.  Between  Burma  and 
Chungking,  where  road  transport  was  difficult  but  where 
cost  was  not  counted,  a  Douglas  transport  was  considered 
equivalent  to  137  trucks.  Between  New  York  and  Chicago 
the  same  sort  of  arithmetic  holds  true;  mass  transport  is  pos- 
sible by  air  because  the  airplane  is  a  fast  worker." 

Charles  Froesch,  chief  engineer  of  Eastern  Airlines,  adds 
that  "a  cargo  airplane  should  be  a  vehicle  to  carry  merchan- 
dise not  only  at  the  lowest  possible  cost,  but  at  the  highest 
possible  speed,  as  speed  is  the  commodity  which  is  paid  for  in 
air  transportation."  Noting  that  first-class  rail  express  costs 
ten  to  twelve  cents  per  ton  mile,  Mr.  Froesch  said  the  total 
cost  of  airplane  shipping  after  the  war  would  be  brought  "well 
below  1 5  cents  per  ton  mile." 

Rapid  peacetime  progress  in  the  cargo-  and  passenger-plane 
field  will  be  possible  because  of  the  powerful  engines  and 
other  equipment  produced  during  World  War  II.  The  horse- 
power of  one  of  the  three  standard  engines  now  used  in  our 
Army  fighting  planes  has  been  increased  more  than  30  per 
cent  since  1939  without  any  increase  in  the  size  of  the  engine 
and  with  a  sharp  reduction  in  the  weight  per  horsepower. 
These  engines  all  will  provide  high  take-oif  power  to  get 
planes  in  the  air  with  heavy  loads,  low  fuel  consumption  at 


Global  Transportation  87 

cruising  speed  for  economy  of  operation,  and  low  weight  per 
horsepower. 

The  Army's  Air  Transport  Command 

Foreshadowing  the  cargo-carrying  wings  of  the  future  is 
the  Army's  Air  Transport  Command.  It  is  bigger  than  all  the 
prewar  air  lines  of  the  world  combined,  as  to  both  route-miles 
flown  and  loads  carried. 

The  ATC  establishes  and  maintains  bases  wherever  neces- 
sary for  the  transportation  by  air  of  cargo,  personnel,  and 
mail  both  within  the  United  States  and  abroad.  In  early  1943 
ATC's  planes  were  operating  over  more  than  ninety  thou- 
sand miles  of  transport  routes,  which  were  being  extended  as 
fighting  fronts  required  more  supplies  in  a  hurry. 

All  sorts  of  cargoes  are  carried  by  the  ATC.  In  cases  of 
emergency,  light  tanks  and  jeeps  are  transported  across  the 
oceans  by  air.  About  the  bulkiest  objects  commonly  carried 
are  airplane  engines.  These  and  plane  parts  of  all  kinds  are 
frequently  handled  by  ATC  planes.  Speed  is  the  keynote  of 
ATC  operations.  One  ATC  plane  flew  from  Australia  to 
California  in  the  record  flying  time  of  thirty-three  hours  and 
twenty-seven  minutes.  Medical  supplies  and  blood  plasma  are 
flown  to  their  destinations.  A  complete  hospital  was  flown  to 
Alaska  in  thirty-six  hours,  replacing  one  that  had  burned  to 
the  ground. 

Planes  which  fly  vital  war  supplies  to  the  fighting  fronts 
usually  do  not  return  empty-handed.  They  come  back  loaded 
with  strategic  materials  for  war  industry.  Planes  have  brought 
block  mica  from  India;  platinum  from  the  Persian  Gulf;  beryl 
ore,  quartz  crystals,  industrial  diamonds,  and  mica  from  South 
Africa.  Crude  rubber  has  been  flown  from  Brazil  and  balsa 
wood  from  Central  America.  A  certain  type  of  Fiji  Island 
beetle  was  "drafted"  and  flown  to  Honduras  to  make  war  on 


88  Miracles  Ahead! 

a  root  weevil  attacking  hemp.  Planes  also  bring  back  wounded 
men  from  combat  zones.  Several  seriously  wounded  men  were 
transported  from  India  to  Washington  in  five  days,  a  distance 
of  more  than  ten  thousand  miles. 


The  Naval  Air  Transport  Service 

The  Naval  Air  Transport  Service,  like  the  ATC,  borrowed 
much  of  its  personnel  and  operating  procedure  from  com- 
mercial air  lines.  The  NATS  is  operating  several  hundred 
planes,  including  many  flying  boats,  over  fifty  thousand  route 
miles.  The  most  marked  difference  between  the  Army  and 
Navy  transport  services  is  in  the  Navy's  use  of  flying  boats 
for  cargo  and  personnel  transport — including  the  evacuation 
of  wounded  from  battle  areas. 

Strange  cargoes  also  are  carried  by  NATS — tons  of  rubber 
seeds  from  Liberia  for  planting  in  South  America,  blood 
plasma  to  New  Guinea  in  three  or  four  days.  One  of  the 
NATS's  outstanding  jobs  is  transporting  repair  parts  to  battle- 
damaged  submarines  in  distant  waters,  thus  permitting  them 
to  get  back  in  action  in  a  few  days  instead  of  being  idle  for 
a  month  or  more. 

Speedier  Loading  Techniques 

William  A.  Lippman,  Jr.,  former  manager  of  freight  and 
express  for  Western  Air  Lines,  feels  that  "for  obvious  rea- 
sons" the  three  or  four  cargo  types  now  being  produced  for 
the  military  will  form  the  equipment  backlog  for  air-freight 
operators  for  a  considerable  period  after  the  war. 

He  warns,  however,  that  the  operator  "who,  by  virtue  of 
a  desire  to  be  first  in  the  field,  finds  himself  with  a  fleet  of 
€-46,  C-47,  or  C-54  planes  will  find  difficulty  in  bringing  his 
costs  into  line  with  the  public  demand  for  competitive  air 


Global  Transportation  89 

freight  rates — unless  he  can  cut  his  ground  time  losses  to  the 
barest  minimum,  for  time  is  the  essence  of  all  things." 

Mr.  Lippman  says  that  "when  the  chips  are  down"  the 
operator  who  keeps  his  planes  in  the  air  for  the  greatest  num- 
ber of  hours  out  of  each  twenty-four  will  be  the  man  who 
rakes  in  the  pot.  He  revealed  that  observations  made  at  an 
airfield  where  the  ground  time  of  planes  averaged  one  hour 
indicated  that  only  twenty  minutes  was  needed  to  move  the 
cargo  into  and  out  of  the  plane.  The  remaining  forty  minutes 
was  used  by  four  experienced  handlers  in  unlashing  and  lash- 
ing cargo  to  the  walls  and  deck  with  ropes. 

Consider  what  that  forty  minutes  cost  the  operator.  A 
Douglas  C-47  plane  hauling  an  average  pay  load  of  6,000 
pounds  at  180  miles  per  hour  has  a  value  of  540  ton-miles  per 
hour  as  a  commercial  carrier  (3  tons  x  180  mph).  At  present 
air-express  rates,  the  earning  power  of  the  €-47  is  $432  per 
hour;  so  each  cargo  would  then  cost  $100  just  to  be  made 
secure — without  reckoning  the  handlers'  salaries. 

The  above  figures  on  ton-miles  and  earnings  per  hour  ex- 
plain why  airplane  designers  and  air-transport  officials  are 
interested  in  designing  new  cargo  planes  that  will  cut  the  time 
lost  in  loading  and  unloading.  Some  of  these  experts  favor  a 
high- wing,  twin-engined  monoplane  (the  C-j6  Caravan  is  of 
this  type)  built  around  a  cargo  space  of  at  least  25x8x8  feet 
— a  railroad  boxcar  is  about  40  x  9  x  9. 

Charles  H.  Babb,  well-known  aircraft  broker,  who  can  tell 
at  any  moment  where  most  of  the  world's  nonmilitary  planes 
are,  who  owns  them,  and  what  shape  they  are  in,  has  designed 
a  cargo  plane  that  is  almost  a  freight  car  with  wings.  Loading 
and  unloading  the  Babb  plane  would  be  facilitated  by  hav- 
ing a  removable  nose  with  a  ramp  for  the  landing  of  heavy 
mining  machinery,  trucks,  and  other  bulky  freight. 

Harlan  D.  Fowler,  who  invented  the  Fowler  flap  to  give 
greater  lift  to  a  plane's  wing,  has  designed  a  cargo  plane  made 


90  Miracles  Ahead! 

of  five  separate  and  detachable  cargo  containers.  Each  con- 
tainer would  hold  one  thousand  pounds  of  freight,  and  any  or 
all  of  them  could  be  lifted  from  the  plane  by  hoists  and  new 
ones  put  in  place  for  a  trip  to  another  city. 

In  mid- 1 943  work  was  proceeding  on  the  much-publicized 
Kaiser-Hughes  H-Ki  Flying  Boat.  This  giant  all-plywood 
ship  of  400,000  pounds  gross  weight  will  have  eight  engines, 
a  fuel  capacity  of  8,000  gallons,  120,000  pounds  cargo  capac- 
ity, and  a  cruising  speed  of  174  miles  per  hour. 

In  designing  cargo  planes  of  the  future,  aeronautical  engi- 
neers will  be  guided  by  this  rule:  the  larger  the  plane  the 
greater  the  percentage  of  pay  load  for  the  same  proportion 
of  horsepower.  The  load  capacity  of  small  planes  is  only  about 
25  per  cent,  while  the  load  capacity  of  giant  planes  may  run 
to  40  per  cent. 

Glider  "Freight  Trains" 

The  use  of  cargo  gliders  towed  by  "locomotive  planes"  is 
expected  to  double  an  airplane's  transport  capacity,  sharply 
reduce  freight  and  express  rates,  and  cut  the  time  needed  to 
load  and  unload  cargo. 

Grover  Loening,  consulting  engineer  of  the  Grumman  Air- 
craft Corporation  and  a  recipient  of  a  Distinguished  Service 
Award  for  the  design  and  completion  of  the  Loening  two- 
seater  fighter  plane,  contends  that  the  use  of  the  glider  and 
the  glider  train  "is  probably  the  most  significant  development 
of  all  the  recent  items  that  have  led  to  more  and  more  effi- 
cient load-carrying  on  aircraft. 

"Gliders  are  the  freight  trains  of  the  air,"  he  adds.  "They 
give  a  versatility  in  the  picking  up  and  delivery  of  cargoes 
and  passengers.  We  can  visualize  a  locomotive  plane  leaving 
La  Guardia  Field  towing  a  train  of  six  gliders  in  the  very  near 
future.  By  the  use  of  the  glider  system  of  carrying  loads, 


Global  Transportation  91 

the  cargo  capacity  of  a  DC-3,  for  example,  would  be  dou- 
bled. 

"By  having  the  load  thus  divided  it  would  be  practical  to 
unhitch  the  glider  that  must  come  down  in  Philadelphia  as 
the  train  flies  over  that  place — similarly  unhitching  the  loaded 
gliders  for  Washington,  for  Richmond,  for  Charleston,  for 
Jacksonville,  as  each  city  is  passed — and  finally  the  air  loco- 
motive itself  lands  in  Miami.  During  that  process  it  has  not 
had  to  make  any  intermediate  landings,  so  that  it  has  not  had 
to  slow  down." 

The  savings  in  the  cost  of  landings  and  take-offs  of  a  heavy, 
powerful  plane  would  be  considerable.  Three  gliders  plus  the 
air  locomotive  would  carry  something  like  190,000  pounds  of 
freight  at  a  speed  of  about  one  hundred  and  twenty  to  one 
hundred  and  fifty  miles  per  hour. 

Since  it  has  no  motor  and  propellers,  the  glider  can  be 
shaped  so  its  nose  resistance  is  one-third  that  of  an  airplane. 
The  glider  can  be  built  much  lighter,  but  its  weight-carrying 
capacity  would  be  approximately  twice  that  of  the  transport 
plane.  The  weight  of  fuel,  engines,  and  the  heavier  bracing  in 
the  transport  plane  could  be  replaced  by  pay  load  in  the 
glider.  Gliders  can  easily  be  pulled  off  the  ground  by  their 
locomotive  plane.  They  are  safely  in  the  air  before  the  tow 
plane  has  left  the  ground.  Army  tests  have  proved  that  gliders 
can  be  taken  in  tow  by  the  locomotive  plane  even  though  the 
plane  itself  is  already  in  the  air.  The  tow  plane  swoops  down, 
hooks  the  towing  cable  of  the  glider,  and  pulls  it  gently  off 
the  ground. 

"A  few  basic  figures  will  give  a  fairly  good  concept  of  the 
advantages  of  this  modern  means  of  transportation,"  states 
Colonel  Edward  S.  Evans.  "The  average  train  of  loaded  box 
cars  carries  2,000  tons  of  freight  at  25  miles  an  hour.  Seven 
glider  trains  could  deliver  the  same  freight  in  one-tenth  the 
time  or,  to  express  it  differently,  seven  glider  trains  could 


92  Miracles  Ahead! 

deliver  ten  times  as  much  freight  as  a  railroad  train  in  the 
same  length  of  time.  And  the  cargo  will  remain  in  much  bet- 
ter condition  since  it  will  not  be  subjected  to  the  shocks  of 
switching  and  shunting." 

Glider  enthusiasts  venture  to  predict  that  glider  trains  may 
lower  air-freight  rates  to  as  little  as  three  cents  a  ton-mile, 
and  predict  wide  postwar  use  of  this  craft  for  passenger-  as 
well  as  freight-carrying  purposes.  But  the  entire  aviation  in- 
dustry is  not  in  agreement  on  the  glider's  future.  Some  experts 
say  the  glider  will  be  less  important  over  long  ranges  in  cargo 
carrying  on  a  large  scale.  Some  companies  have,  however, 
filed  an  application  with  the  CAB  for  cargo-carrying  air  serv- 
ice which  will  use  glider  towing  by  aircraft. 

On  July  4,  1943,  the  R.A.F.  disclosed  that  the  first  "air- 
train"  flight  across  the  Atlantic  had  been  made.  A  fully  loaded 
glider  carrying  vaccines  for  Russia,  and  radio,  aircraft,  and 
motor  parts,  was  towed  thirty-five  hundred  miles  from  Mon- 
treal to  England  in  twenty-eight  hours.  The  R.A.F.  Trans- 
port Command  provided  the  officers  and  crews  for  this  historic 
flight,  but  the  equipment  was  American-made. 

The  glider — "Voo-Doo" — with  an  eighty-four-foot  wing- 
spread  was  piloted  by  Squadron  Leader  R.  G.  Seys,  holder 
of  the  Distinguished  Flying  Cross.  The  tow  plane  was  a  twin- 
engined  Douglas  transport. 

"One  of  the  things  that  gave  us  the  greatest  satisfaction 
about  our  glider  crossing  of  the  Atlantic,"  remarked  Squadron 
Leader  Seys,  "is  that  the  critics  have  been  confounded.  Few 
people  had  much  faith  in  glider  flying.  These  were  so  few, 
indeed,  that  bets  of  5-to-i  were  being  offered  against  a  suc- 
cessful flight — bets  which  none  of  us  took.  To  be  candid,  I 
was  more  than  somewhat  frightened  at  the  prospect  of  the 
tremendous  haul  before  us.  This  was  soon  banished  by  the 
thrill  of  getting  away  according  to  plan." 


Global  Transportation  93 

The  Rocket  Motor 

Reports  from  Britain  say  that  the  Nazis  use  rocket  power  to 
get  JU-88's  off  the  ground  with  a  three  thousand-pound  over- 
load. The  rockets  are  carried  under  the  fuselage  belly  and  are 
dropped  when  the  plane  attains  the  required  take-off  speed. 
Besides  the  use  of  rocket  power  (jet  propulsion)  there  are 
indications  that  the  Nazis  also  use  tow  lines  as  well  as  cata- 
pults to  hurl  their  heavy  planes  into  the  air. 

Experiments  with  small  jet  motors,  conducted  by  Dr.  R.  H. 
Goddard,  the  American  Rocket  Society,  and  others,  appear 
to  prove  that  these  motors  warrant  consideration  as  auxiliary 
booster  motors  to  function  during  take-off  or  at  any  other 
time  that  a  burst  of  great  power  is  needed. 

The  jet  or  rocket  motor  is  internal  combustion  in  its  sim- 
plest form.  It  usually  consists  only  of  a  combustion  chamber 
and  a  nozzle.  Liquid  fuels,  usually  hydrocarbons  and  liquid 
oxygen,  are  fed  into  the  chamber  under  pressure.  Upon  igni- 
tion, by  spark  plug  or  other  means,  the  combustion  is  con- 
tinuous and  the  exhaust  leaves  the  nozzle  at  great  velocity, 
thereby  creating  an  equal  reaction  in  the  opposite  direction — 
like  the  recoil  of  a  gun  when  it  is  fired.  The  force  of  this 
reaction  depends  upon  the  velocity  of  jet.  Jet  velocities  have 
reached  sixty-five  hundred  feet  in  a  second  (over  four  thou- 
sand miles  per  hour),  which  would  be  the  speed  of  the  rocket 
in  an  absolute  vacuum.  The  rocket  engine  is  the  most  ineffi- 
cient of  all  motors  at  low  speeds,  but  this  should  not  hamper 
its  use  now.  Effectiveness  is  more  important  than  efficiency  in 
wartime. 

A  jet-propelled  aircraft,  designed  by  Signor  Campini  and 
built  by  the  Caproni  Airplane  Company  of  Milan,  Italy,  flew 
one  hundred  and  sixty-eight  miles  at  an  average  speed  of  one 
hundred  and  thirty  miles  per  hour  in  December,  1941.  Air  is 
taken  in  at  the  hollow  nose  of  this  propellerless  plane  and  ac- 


94  Miracles  Ahead! 

celerated  through  a  tunnel  toward  the  rear  by  an  engine- 
driven  compressor  or  blower.  Fuel  is  burned  in  the  air  stream 
just  before  ejection  at  the  nozzle.  Since  the  oxygen  used  by 
the  plane  must  be  obtained  from  the  air  in  which  the  plane 
flies,  it,  like  other  planes,  is  limited  by  the  atmospheric  pres- 
sure at  high  altitudes. 

A  rocket-propelled  craft  of  the  future,  which  carries  its 
own  fuel  and  oxygen,  would  become  more  and  more  efficient 
as  it  gained  speed.  In  a  perfect  vacuum  the  plane  would,  the- 
oretically, be  100  per  cent  efficient  because  the  forward  veloc- 
ity of  the  plane  would  equal  the  velocity  of  the  propulsion 
jet. 

Radio  Aids 

Numerous  other  wartime  devices  will  be  on  hand  to  aid 
postwar  commercial  aviation.  David  Sarnoff,  president  of 
Radio  Corporation  of  America,  predicts  a  great  advance  in 
the  science  of  radio,  in  which  radio  instruments  will  emerge 
from  the  war  "almost  human  in  their  capabilities." 

He  pointed  out  that  "the  radio  direction  finder,  which  here- 
tofore had  only  an  ear,  now  also  has  an  eye.  The  safety  of  avi- 
ation will  be  greatly  enhanced,  for  the  aviator  will  be  able 
to  see  the  ground  through  clouds  or  darkness.  By  the  scien- 
tific application  of  the  radio  echo,  the  radio  'eye'  will  avert 
collisions,  while  the  radio  altimeter  will  measure  the  altitude 
and  warn  of  mountains  ahead  or  structures  below." 

The  radio  altimeter  (or  absolute  altimeter)  is  a  great  im- 
provement over  the  instrument  used  in  past  years.  This  altim- 
eter is  operated  by  the  change  in  air  pressure,  and  it  gives  only 
the  altitude  above  sea  level.  A  pilot  flying  at  five  thousand 
feet  might  pass  over  a  peak  at  an  altitude  of  only  fifty  feet, 
but  the  altimeter  would  show  the  altitude  as  five  thousand 
feet. 


Global  Transportation  95 

The  absolute  altimeter  sends  out  an  ultrahigh-frequency 
signal  vertically  to  the  ground  and  picks  the  signal  up  as  it  is 
reflected  into  the  air.  In  addition,  part  of  the  signal  is  trans- 
mitted directly  from  the  sending  to  the  receiving  antenna. 
The  difference  in  time  between  the  reception  of  the  direct 
and  reflected  signals  serves  to  give  the  pilot  his  exact  altitude 
above  the  ground  at  all  times. 

Mr.  Sarnoff  described  Radar  (Radio  Detecting  And  Rang- 
ing) as  a  great  offensive  and  defensive  weapon  in  wartime 
which  will,  in  peacetime,  assure  both  air  and  surface  craft 
safe  passage  in  any  weather.  Radar,  plus  the  rapid  improve- 
ment in  blind  or  radio  beam  flying,  should  ultimately  make  air 
traffic  almost  100  per  cent  foolproof. 

The  Finest  Airways  System  on  Earth 

No  other  country  in  the  world  has  an  airways  system  to 
match  that  maintained  by  the  Civil  Aeronautics  Administra- 
tion (CAA) .  Early  in  1943  the  CAA  was  operating  three  hun- 
dred and  eleven  lighted  intermediate  (emergency-landing) 
fields,  one  hundred  and  forty- two  flashing  beacons,  and  2,098 
rotating  beacons  along  the  Federal  Airways  System  within 
the  United  States. 

For  the  benefit  of  all  airmen  (not  just  air  lines  pilots)  the 
CAA  maintains  and  operates  four  hundred  and  eight  inter- 
mediate-frequency radio  range  and  marker  stations,  one  hun- 
dred and  ninety-seven  ultrahigh-frequency  radio  fan  markers, 
and  seventy-two  ultrahigh-frequency  radio  range  stations 
(which  probably  will  be  increased  to  one  hundred  and  forty- 
three  during  1943).  Also  in  the  airways  system  are  four  hun- 
dred and  forty-six  weather-reporting  stations,  joined  by  a 
54,000  mile  teletype  circuit  for  quick  reporting  of  meteorologi- 
cal conditions  from  coast  to  coast.  Traffic  from  point  to  point 
along  the  airways  is  directed  from  twenty-three  control  sta- 


96  Miracles  Ahead! 

tions,  located  at  major  airports.  The  control  centers  use  a 
10,400  mile  teletype  circuit  to  check  and  clear  movements 
of  swiftly  traveling  aircraft  along  the  airways.  Finally,  at  sev- 
enty-four designated  fields  the  CAA  operates  airport  control 
towers.  This  number  will  be  increased,  at  the  request  of  the 
military,  to  one  hundred  and  twenty  or  more  in  1943. 

Since  1941  the  Alaskan  Airways  System  has  been  expanded 
and  improved  until  Alaska  now  has  as  fine  a  system  of  air- 
ways and  airports  as  any  section  of  the  United  States. 

The  Federal  Airways  System  now  operates  six  interconti- 
nental superradio  stations  capable  of  communicating  with  air- 
craft at  any  point  on  the  globe.  These  stations  have  placed 
the  United  States  several  years  ahead  of  any  other  nation  in 
the  world  in  the  development  of  intercontinental  airways. 

The  immediate  postwar  problems  of  the  airways,  as  seen 
by  the  CAA,  will  be  the  rebuilding  of  the  entire  domestic  air- 
ways system  by  substituting  ultrahigh-frequency  for  the  old 
standard  intermediate  frequency.  Ultrahigh  frequency  will 
eliminate  static  and  provide  airmen  with  aerial  "highway 
markers"  as  easy  to  follow  as  those  along  our  best  highways. 

The  CAA  reports  that,  exclusive  of  certain  military  air- 
dromes, there  will  be  about  eight  hundred  and  sixty-five  major 
airports  in  the  United  States  by  the  end  of  1943.  All  of  them 
will  have  paved  runways  of  thirty-five  hundred  feet  or  more, 
capable  of  handling  the  largest  craft.  Less  than  one  hundred 
such  fields  existed  in  1940.  In  addition  to  these  there  are  more 
than  two  thousand  lesser  fields.  Within  the  past  few  years 
numerous  new  airports  for  the  use  of  military  transports  and 
combat  planes  have  been  built  with  American  and  Allied 
funds  throughout  the  country.  After  the  war  many  of  these 
fields  will  be  available  for  civilian  use. 

In  planning  future  airways  and  other  facilities,  the  CAA 
figures  that  before  1950  the  United  States  may  well  have  five 
hundred  thousand  private,  commercial,  and  military  planes  in 


Global  Transportation  97 

active  service.  Wolfgang  Langewiesche  contends  that  "we 
shall  need  an  extension  of  the  airways  to  the  grass  routes. 
That  may  mean  low-cost  'flyways'  for  bad  weather,  extend- 
ing to  every  town,  with  a  landing  strip  every  ten  miles  and 
perhaps  regular  sign  posts,  bearing  numbers,  marking  the 


route." 


Solutions  for  Postwar  Unemployment 

In  1943,  according  to  the  OWI,  the  total  production  of  the 
American  aviation  industry — cargo  and  combat  planes  to- 
gether— will  reach  the  total  of  $20,100,000,000,  a  fourth  of 
our  war  budget  for  the  year  and  almost  a  seventh  of  the  esti- 
mated national  income.  This  is  in  contrast  with  the  auto  indus- 
try, which  at  its  peak  in  1941  reached  only  $3,700,000,000. 
About  2,500,000  trained  workers  are  now  turning  out  planes 
and  almost  all  airplane  plants  can  be  converted  to  the  pro- 
duction of  peacetime  aircraft. 

Will  aircraft  plants  shut  down  when  the  war  ends  and  turn 
loose  thousands  of  employees  to  hunt  for  jobs  in  other  indus- 
tries? It  would  appear  that  commercial  and  private  equip- 
ment requirements  will  keep  most  factories  busy  for  a  while, 
and  the  military  planes  on  hand  will  require  an  annual  re- 
placement of  about  25  per  cent  because  of  losses  and  the  fact 
that  planes  will  get  out  of  date. 

Glenn  L.  Martin  does  not  believe  that  the  postwar  years 
should  hold  any  fears  for  the  airplane  industry.  He  predicts 
that  after  readjustments  are  made  the  plane  builders  will  be 
even  busier  than  they  are  right  now  turning  out  planes  "for 
an  aviation  business  bigger  than  anything  we  ever  dreamed." 
He  believes  that  in  five  or  six  years  the  industry  "will  be 
using  at  least  all  of  its  wartime  workers." 

Mr.  Martin  based  his  prophecy  on  these  factors:  (i)  need 
for  at  least  five  years'  replacement  in  domestic  aviation;  (2) 


98  Miracles  Ahead! 

demand  for  new  military  planes,  especially  types  useful  for 
policing  the  Axis  nations;  (3)  development  of  the  cargo  glider, 
along  with  special  tractor  planes  to  tow  them;  (4)  growth  of 
international  and  oceanic  air  lines  requiring  hundreds  of  giant 
flying  boats;  (5)  transportation  of  all  mail,  plus  a  substantial 
portion  of  express  business,  by  air  instead  of  by  surface  car- 
riers; (6)  expansion  of  the  private  plane  market  by  thousands 
of  wartime  pilots  who  have  learned  to  fly  and  will  want  to 
continue  flying,  and  by  thousands  of  other  people  who  will 
have  become  "air-conditioned"  during  the  war. 

Other  observers  foresee  a  lot  of  jobs  for  pilots  and  workers, 
selling  and  servicing  private  planes  and  teaching  people  how 
to  fly.  Many  other  workers  will  be  needed  to  operate  new 
airports  and  maintain  the  flying  aids  on  our  airways. 

New  businesses  will  be  organized  to  provide  "taxi"  planes 
for  business  and  sight-seeing;  for  crop  dusting,  aerial  photog- 
raphy, and  other  purposes.  These  organizations  will  provide 
jobs  for  pilots,  mechanics,  and  office  workers. 

Other  Postwar  Issues 

Experience  gained  by  United  States  pilots  and  ground  crews 
in  the  world-wide  operations  of  ATC  and  NATS  will  give 
this  country  a  long  lead  over  Britain  and  other  United  Nations 
in  the  race  for  air-transport  business  when  the  war  ends. 
Britain  will  be  at  a  further  disadvantage  because  the  United 
States  has  been  building  most  of  the  transport  planes,  while 
the  British  have  concentrated  on  the  production  of  bombers 
and  fighters. 

Referring  to  this  fact,  Juan  Trippe,  president  of  Pan  Amer- 
ican Airways,  said  that  British  Overseas  Airways  and  the 
national  air  lines  of  the  other  United  Nations  should  each  be 
permitted  to  obtain  from  the  United  States,  on  equitable 
terms,  all  the  ocean-transport  planes  they  will  need  to  restore 
the  balance  of  fair  competition. 


Global  Transportation  99 

"We  all  share  the  healthy  American  aspiration  to  be  the 
winner  of  a  race  or  a  ball  game  or  an  international  business 
competition,"  he  said.  "But  fair  is  fair.  If  you  want  to  win  a 
baseball  game  you  try  to  out-hit  and  out-score  the  other  fel- 
low, but  you  don't  take  away  his  bat." 

In  a  questionnaire  on  postwar  air  commerce  which  the  CAB 
sent  to  eighteen  air  lines  the  private  companies  indicated  firm 
opposition  to  government  participation  in  the  management  or 
ownership  of  their  companies  in  the  development  of  foreign 
air  commerce.  The  air  lines  contended  that  past  performance 
has  shown  that  private  management  and  initiative  "are  capa- 
ble of  successfully  upholding  the  role  of  the  United  States  in 
post-war  transport." 

They  agreed  with  the  CAB  that  the  government  should 
immediately  arrange  a  reciprocal  exchange  with  other  coun- 
tries for  the  general  right  of  "innocent  passage"  (nonrnili- 
tary),  together  with  the  right  to  land  for  refuelling  and  for 
other  technical  needs. 

Merchant  ships  long  have  enjoyed  the  right  of  "innocent 
passage"  through  waterways  controlled  by  a  foreign  nation. 
Airplanes  never  have  had  this  right.  For  example,  an  Ameri- 
can ship  on  a  voyage  from  Seattle  to  Alaska  could  pass 
through  Canadian  territorial  waters  without  asking  anybody's 
permission.  But  an  American  air  transport  on  the  same  route 
would  have  to  get  express  permission  from  Canada  to  fly 
over  the  same  waters.  The  only  "free"  air  lies  over  the  oceans, 
beyond  the  three-mile  limit. 

"The  right  of  'innocent  passage/  "  the  air  lines  explained, 
"is  basic  to  the  development  of  international  air  transporta- 
tion and  leaves  open  for  later  negotiation  and  agreement  the 
question  of  the  right  to  engage  in  commerce  by  air."  * 

Some  American  aviation  experts  fear  that  the  granting  of 
reciprocal  trading  rights  to  foreign  nations  will  expose  our 
air  lines  to  dangerous  foreign  competition.  They  point  out 

1  Italics  ours. 


ioo  Miracles  Ahead! 

that  foreign  merchant  marines,  operating  with  low  wage 
standards  and  supported  by  their  governments,  were  able  to 
cripple  the  United  States  Merchant  Marine  after  the  first 
World  War.  Oliver  J.  Lissitzyn  in  his  book  International 
Air  Transport  and  National  Policy  *  argues,  however,  that 
there  is  not  likely  to  be  much  difference  between  air-transport 
costs  in  this  nation  and  foreign  countries,  and  that  American 
companies  will  have  the  modern  planes  and  the  "know  how" 
to  hold  their  own  by  offering  a  high-quality  service  at  reason- 
able rates. 

It  appears,  too,  that  if  we  want  the  right  to  carry  passengers 
and  freight  to  foreign  nations  we  will  have  to  let  them  operate 
planes  to  and  from  the  United  States,  just  as  foreign  ships  are 
permitted  to  trade  to  and  from  our  ports. 

Other  observers  warn  against  letting  postwar  competition 
for  air  traffic  get  out  of  hand.  Bitter  competition  among  the 
United  Nations  could  wreck  the  teamwork  that  will  be 
needed  to  hold  Axis  nations  in  check  and  preserve  world 
peace. 

"Air  power,"  declares  Juan  Trippe,  "can  further  anarchy 
or  peace.  It  can  destroy  or  build.  It  can  be  a  lethal  weapon 
or  a  life-giving  tool — sword  or  ploughshare,  Frankenstein 
monster  or  Aladdin's  lamp,  Stuka  or  Clipper.  It  can  enslave 
man  or  set  him  free.  .  .  . 

"It  is  obvious,  of  course,  that  the  great  national  air  trans- 
port monopolies,  will  continue  to  compete  with  each  other 
and  with  us.  But  it  is  vital  to  establish  an  equitable  basis  for 
such  competition.  Friendship  will  result  from  fair  play. 

"The  war,"  he  concluded,  "has  been  a  bitter  laboratory  for 
air  transport  and  its  benefits  should  be  made  available  to  all 
the  people  in  the  peace  to  come." 

1  Lissitzyn,  Oliver  J.,  International  Air  Transport  and  National  Policy. 
New  York,  Council  of  Foreign  Relations,  1942. 


VII 

BY    LAND  AND   SEA 

IT  WOULD  BE  extremely  unwise  to  compose  an  epitaph  for  the 
railroads,  steamships,  trucks,  and  busses  at  this  point.  Airplanes 
will  compete  strongly  with  surface  transportation  in  the  next 
few  years,  but  these  carriers  are  preparing  to  put  up  a  stiff 
fight  for  business. 

Furthermore,  as  W.  A.  Patterson,  president  of  the  United 
Airlines,  pointed  out,  "If  the  volume  of  air-borne  cargo  in- 
creased one  hundred  fold  it  would  still  take  only  one  tenth  of 
one  percent  of  the  freight  noiv  being  transported  by  the 
American  railroads! 

"The  airplane  and  railroads,"  he  added,  "will  be  definitely 
competitive  for  certain  types  of  express,  but  the  gains  which 
the  railroads  will  achieve  in  freight  traffic  created  by  the  air- 
plane will  more  than  offset  their  loss  of  passenger  business  to 
the  airlines." 

The  railroads  grew  up  with  the  United  States,  and  their 
bands  of  steel  helped  bind  the  growing  country  together.  In 
Europe  the  rails  were  laid  between  well-established  cities.  But 
in  the  United  States  the  railroads  pushed  westward  and  people 
and  towns  followed.  Because  of  the  importance  of  transporta- 
tion in  the  Far  West,  the  states  and  the  Federal  Government 
stimulated  railroad  construction  with  loans  and  grants  of 
land. 

After  1920  the  competition  of  oil  pipe  lines,  automobiles, 
trucks,  busses,  inland  waterways,  and  finally  the  airplane 
sharply  cut  railroad  passenger  and  express  business.  Certain 

101 


102  Miracles  Ahead! 

leaders  in  the  railroad  industry  sought  ways  to  meet  this  com- 
petition. In  the  early  1930*8  William  Stout,  the  Detroit  engi- 
neer, designed  the  first  streamlined,  lightweight,  gasoline- 
driven  train  in  the  United  States  for  the  Pullman  Car  &  Manu- 
facturing Corporation.  The  "Railplane"  was  made  of  welded 
steel  tubing  covered  with  duralumin,  and  Stout  claimed  that 
tests  showed  the  Railplane  truck  was  one-tenth  the  weight 
and  two  and  a  half  times  as  strong  as  the  standard  railroad 
truck.  Its  two  163  horsepower  engines  gave  the  Railplane  a 
top  speed  of  ninety  miles  per  hour  and  it  traveled  on  rubber- 
lined  wheel  rims,  which  absorbed  the  shock.  Sealed  windows 
and  forced  ventilation  assured  passengers  of  a  comfortable 
dust-free  ride. 

Several  years  passed,  however,  before  the  railroads  began 
using  streamlined  and  Diesel-motored  trains  to  compete  with 
airplanes,  trucks,  busses,  and  private  automobiles.  But  by  1940 
the  United  States  had  the  largest  number  of  trains  in  its  his- 
tory with  scheduled  runs  of  sixty  miles  per  hour  or  more,  and 
freight  trains  ran  half  again  as  fast  and  hauled  more  cars. 
Coaches  were  more  comfortable  and  attractive  than  the  Pull- 
man cars  used  on  all  the  first-class  railroads  a  few  years 
earlier. 

Postwar  advances  in  railroading  will  eclipse  those  made  in 
prewar  years.  Abundant  supplies  of  cheap  aluminum  and 
magnesium  and  new  steel  alloys,  will  permit  the  railroads  to 
rebuild  their  rolling  stock.  The  ever-busy  Henry  J.  Kaiser 
announced  in  May,  1943,  that  he  intends  to  turn  out  fast, 
lightweight  railroad  cars  in  the  yards  where  he  now  produces 
ships. 

"These  yards,"  he  explained,  "can  be  quickly  converted  to 
handle  railroad  equipment.  They  can  turn  out  welded  cars 
on  a  mass  production  basis  with  speed  and  economy.  We 
agree,"  he  added,  "that  our  railroads  must  be  rebuilt  after  the 


By  Land  and  Sea  103 

war.  We  agree  that  thousands  of  shipyard  workers  must  have 
jobs.  This  will  do  both." 

Kaiser  engineers  have  developed  passenger  coaches  made  of 
new  steel  alloys  and  aluminum  and  magnesium.  They  will  be 
so  light  that  one  engine  can  pull  two  or  three  times  the  num- 
ber on  the  same  amount  of  fuel.  Lightweight  freight  cars  also 
have  been  planned.  The  substitution  of  light  metals  for  steel 
in  these  cars  will  cut  weight  from  forty-five  thousand  pounds 
to  fifteen  thousand.  The  cars  can  handle  the  nation's  freight 
at  twice  the  present  speed  and  about  half  the  cost,  according 
to  Mr,  Kaiser.  The  drop  in  rail  equipment  and  operating  costs 
will  permit  the  railroads  to  lower  rates  to  compete  favorably 
with  other  carriers. 

The  lightweight  passenger  coaches  also  will  have  improved 
air  conditioning,  cool  fluorescent  lighting,  larger  windows  and 
sky-view  roofs  of  strong  transparent  plastic,  in  addition  to 
all  the  refinements  of  the  best  hotel. 

Edward  G.  Budd,  president  of  the  manufacturing  company 
bearing  his  name  and  a  pioneer  in  the  use  of  stainless  steel  for 
planes  and  trains,  is  confident  that  there  should  be  a  potential 
market  for  railway  passenger  cars  "to  the  value  of  several  hun- 
dred million  dollars  immediately  upon  the  lifting  of  present 


restrictions." 


Diesel  motors — internal-combustion  engines  without  spark 
plugs — will  continue  to  grow  in  popularity  on  the  railroads. 
Cost  of  operation  is  low  for  Diesels  and  they  can  outpull 
many  steam  locomotives.  M.  W.  Smith,  vice-president  in 
charge  of  engineering  for  the  Westinghouse  Electric  &  Man- 
ufacturing Co.,  believes,  however,  that  efficient  turbines  will 
be  used  for  trains  as  well  as  planes.  He  said  that  the  high- 
speed gas  turbine,  using  a  continuous  expansion  of  gas  to 
rotate  windmill-like  blades  and  produce  a  steady  flow  of 
power,  offers  the  possibility  of  another  form  of  motive  power 


104  Miracles  Ahead! 

for  locomotives  using  either  mechanical  or  electrical  drives 
and  transmissions. 

He  revealed  early  in  1943  that  a  steam-turbine-driven  loco- 
motive geared  directly  to  the  driving  wheels  actually  has  been 
designed  and  is  about  to  be  made  and  tested.  Mr.  Smith  said 
it  would  supply  higher  power  at  faster  speeds  "exceeding 
that  available  from  reciprocating  steam  locomotives."  A  6,500 
horsepower  unit  could,  according  to  engineers,  save  more 
than  25  per  cent  in  the  pounds  of  steam  per  horsepower  hour 
over  the  present-day  locomotive.  This  points  to  more  eco- 
nomical operation  and,  since  it  eliminates  certain  locomotive 
parts  that  move  back  and  forth,  it  would  cut  wear  and  tear 
on  moving  parts,  permit  the  use  of  smaller  wheels,  and  allow 
more  space  for  boilers. 

A  recent  invention,  on  which  a  United  States  patent  was 
granted  in  1943,  promises  to  greatly  improve  the  present-day 
steam  locomotive.  It  would  give  the  railroad  engine  the  ad- 
vantage of  more  efficient,  higher  steam  pressure  now  available 
to  ships  and  power  plants.  The  new  design  uses  a  horizontal 
water-tube  boiler  instead  of  the  old-style  fire-tube  boiler. 
The  tubes  are  suspended  around  a  large  fire  space  within  the 
engine  shell,  and  insulate  it  against  the  high  firebox  tempera- 
ture— a  method  similar  to  that  employed  on  ships.  Steam  is 
stored  in  eight  or  more  vertical  steam  drums  arranged  in  two 
rows  down  the  sides  of  the  locomotive. 

"The  Battle  of  Transportation7' 

When  World  War  II  began,  Nazi  experts  were  confident 
that  the  "obsolete"  United  States  railroads  would  be  unable 
to  meet  the  demands  of  total  war.  They  pointed  out  correctly 
that  our  railroads  had  less  equipment  than  in  1916.  But  the 
railroads,  with  fewer  locomotives,  coaches,  and  freight  cars, 
have  broken  every  passenger-  and  freight-carrying  record. 


By  Land  and  Sea  105 

Their  performance  under  war  handicaps  indicates  that  they 
will  be  ready,  willing,  and  able  to  give  a  good  account  of 
themselves  against  all  competitors  in  postwar  years. 

Reporting  on  "the  battle  of  transportation,"  the  Office  of 
War  Information  pointed  out  that  the  heavy  blow  delivered 
by  Nazi  submarines  to  intercoastal  shipping  through  the 
Panama  Canal,  and  to  coastwise  shipping  along  the  Atlantic, 
had  thrown  a  heavy  burden  on  the  railroads.  Before  the  war 
emergency,  said  the  OWI,  one  tanker  used  to  leave  the  Gulf 
ports  almost  every  hour  with  oil  for  the  seventeen  Eastern 
states  and  the  District  of  Columbia,  now  known  as  District  I. 
One  million  five  hundred  thousand  barrels  of  oil  a  day  were 
delivered  to  that  region  by  water.  Customarily  only  five  or 
six  thousand  barrels  a  day  were  delivered  by  rail,  virtually 
all  of  it  special  products  such  as  asphalt,  liquefied  petroleum 
gases,  and  wax.  Now  East-coast  tankers  are  few  (the  exact 
number  of  those  in  service  is  a  war  secret)  and  the  railroads 
have  taken  over  Eastern  oil  deliveries  in  a  larger  measure  than 
was  believed  possible — even  by  themselves — when  the  emer- 
gency first  arose. 

"Somewhat  less  than  in  the  case  of  oil,  but  still  to  a  strik- 
ing extent,"  the  OWI  reports,  "the  railroads  have  assumed 
the  major  burden  of  coal  deliveries  to  the  Northeast.  New 
England,  which  in  1939  received  three-quarters  of  its  bitumi- 
nous coal  by  collier,  is  now  receiving  over  half  by  rail.  .  .  . 
New  York,  which  is  more  easily  served  by  rail  than  is  New 
England,  now  receives  no  collier  deliveries  from  Hampton 
Roads." 

In  addition  to  the  above  shipments,  the  railroads  are  mov- 
ing to  ports  quantities  of  Army  and  Lend-Lease  exports  which 
dwarf  anything  in  the  country's  history.  In  1942  they  car- 
ried 638,000,000,000  ton-miles  of  freight,  an  increase  of  a 
third  over  1941,  which  had  been  the  peak  year,  and  OWI 
says  the  figure  cannot  help  but  rise  in  1943. 


106  Miracles  Ahead! 

The  OWI  compares  the  railroads'  performance  in  the  first 
World  War  and  in  World  War  II: 

"During  the  last  war,  freight  congestion  on  the  railroads, 
particularly  at  and  behind  ports,  became  so  great  that  war 
plants  closed  for  lack  of  coal,  fuel  riots  took  place,  goods 
spoiled  on  piers,  and  freight  cars  containing  cargo  needed  for 
ships  had  to  be  lifted  out  of  clogged  yards  by  crane.  This  was 
due  in  large  part  to  the  facts  that  the  railroad  lacked  any  cen- 
tral agency  among  themselves  (such  as  is  now  provided  by 
the  Car  Service  Division  of  the  Association  of  American  Rail- 
roads, which  arranges  for  pooling  of  freight  cars  and  other 
equipment),  and  that  there  was  little  cooperation  between 
carrier  and  shipper,  goods  being  routed  to  ports  without  any 
assurance  that  ship  space  would  be  ready.  After  the  govern- 
ment took  the  railroads  over  in  December,  1917,  conditions 
improved.  But  at  no  time  were  there  so  few  prolonged  con- 
gestions as  at  present.  And  at  no  time  during  the  last  war  did 
such  an  immense  volume  of  freight  move  westward  as  well  as 
eastward  across  the  country  as  today. 

"There  is  no  talk,  at  the  present  time,"  the  OWI  adds,  "of 
the  government  assuming  ownership  and  operation  of  the 
railroads.  .  .  .  The  Army  and  Lend-Lease  and  other  agen- 
cies agree  that  the  control  system  is  working  'reasonably  well' 
and  it  is  generally  agreed  that  desire  to  avoid  government  con- 
trols has  acted  as  a  stimulus  to  the  railroads  to  maintain  a 
high  degree  of  cooperation." 

In  its  report  on  postwar  transportation  problems  the 
National  Resources  Planning  Board  stated  that  "the  future 
of  the  railroad  lies  in  its  continuance  as  the  principal  agency 
for  heavy  freight  movement.  The  railways  are  capable,  under 
a  system  of  trainload  operation  and  rates,  of  meeting  much 
inland  waterway  competition,  other  than  on  the  Great  Lakes. 
Except  for  the  waterways  no  agency  of  transport  can  seri- 
ously challenge  them  save  on  the  shortest  hauls." 


By  Land  and  Sea  107 

Trucks  and  Busses  Hold  Their  Oivn 

A  survey  by  the  Automotive  Council  of  War  Production 
of  227  truck  operators  showed  that  of  30,069  loads  carried  in 
a  one-week  period  in  1943  almost  75  per  cent  conveyed  mili- 
tary materials  or  products.  Another  survey,  of  741  war  plants, 
revealed  that  65  per  cent  of  incoming  freight  and  69  per  cent 
of  outgoing  freight  was  being  shipped  by  truck.  Likewise  the 
amount  of  shipping,  both  incoming  and  outgoing,  carried  by 
motor  vehicles,  averaged  better  than  50  per  cent  for  1,311 
smaller  firms  in  Minnesota,  Missouri,  and  South  Dakota. 

Looking  ahead  to  postwar  years,  the  NRPB  believes  the 
fluidity  and  quick  response  in  emergencies  of  truck  transpor- 
tation, which  made  it  valuable  in  wartime,  will  enable  it  to 
hold  business  in  the  future. 

"The  motortruck  is  most  useful,"  the  NRPB  reported,  "in 
terminal  service,  on  the  shorter  hauls,  and  over  longer  routes 
where  its  speed  can  equal  or  exceed  that  of  rail  operation. 
In  the  merchandise  business,  however,  speed  and  flexibility  of 
service,  combined  with  favorable  rates  and  minimum  packing 
requirements  make  truck  service  especially  attractive.  Most 
less-than-carload  business,  except  on  the  longest  hauls,  may 
eventually  move  by  truck  or  by  some  form  of  coordinated 
service.  In  areas  of  light  traffic  density,  along  branch  lines, 
and  in  local  service  along  major  channels  of  trade,  the  motor- 
truck has  another  important  place  to  fill." 

Engineers  of  Mack  Truck,  Inc.,  foresee  a  great  change  in 
materials  that  form  the  body  of  postwar  trucks.  Magnesium, 
aluminum,  and  a  host  of  other  lightweight  materials,  such  as 
plastic  bonded  plywood,  will  cut  truck  weight  and  allow  for 
that  much  more  weight  in  pay  load.  Major  changes  also  are 
expected  to  take  place  in  the  engine.  A  lighter  engine  with 
greater  horsepower  in  proportion  to  weight  is  being  designed. 
High-octane  gasoline,  used  now  exclusively  for  aircraft,  will 


io8  Miracles  Ahead! 

play  a  major  role  in  the  development  of  more  efficient 
engines.  The  NRPB  also  forecast  the  greater  use  of  Diesels 
in  trucks. 

The  "Truck  of  the  Future,"  designed  by  Lurelle  Guild, 
noted  New  York  industrial  designer,  has  a  completely  stream- 
lined body  enclosing  the  wheels.  Front  as  well  as  rear  loading, 
better  load  distribution,  tandem  front-driving  axles,  curved 
plastic  windshield  giving  better  vision  in  front,  and  periscope 
rear  vision  are  among  the  other  features  provided  by  this 
vehicle. 

Edward  G.  Budd  pointed  out  that  his  company  had  just 
reached  full-scale  production  of  stainless-steel  trailers  at  the 
outbreak  of  the  war,  and  was  assured  of  a  large  volume  of  this 
business  in  the  postwar  period  because  of  the  successful  ex- 
perience trucking  companies  had  with  the  lighter  type  of 
trailer. 

"Bus  transportation,"  declared  the  NRPB,  "has  important 
advantages  in  short-distance  traffic  and  in  cross-country  traf- 
fic between  the  major  channels  of  movement.  It  also  provides 
frequent  and  economical  service  in  the  light  traffic  areas  which 
cannot  be  satisfactorily  served  by  rail.  Except  on  local  hauls, 
however,  good  rail  service  can  offer  substantial  competi- 


tion." 


Busses,  as  well  as  the  railroads,  will  have  to  battle  the  air 
liners  and  passenger-carrying  gliders.  They  are  expected  to 
match  the  railroads  in  providing  fully  air-conditioned  coaches, 
with  plastic  windows,  sky-view  roofs,  private  compartments 
in  front,  and  a  lounge  and  observation  room  in  the  rear. 
A  double-decked  coach  may  be  built  like  a  huge  trailer  with 
the  driver's  cab  and  engine  hitched  on  for  ease  in  maneuver- 
ing- 

Your  travel  dollar  will  buy  a  lot  of  comfort  on  these  busses; 
and  fares  also  will  be  low,  because  light-metal  or  plastic  and 
plywood  bodies,  plus  superefficient  engines,  will  permit  these 


By  Land  and  Sea  109 

vehicles  to  get  twice  as  many  miles  per  gallon  of  high-octane 
gasoline. 

During  the  first  World  War  the  nation  spent  $3,000,000,000 
for  a  fleet  of  twenty-five  hundred  ships.  But  lack  of  a  con- 
sistent government  policy,  plus  competition  from  foreign 
ships  supported  by  their  governments  and  paying  their  crews 
lower  wages,  soon  crippled  the  American  Merchant  Marine. 
In  a  dozen  years  the  United  States  had  only  three  hundred  and 
forty-seven  ocean  ships.  After  Congress  passed  the  Merchant 
Marine  Act  of  1936  real  progress  was  made.  New,  modern 
ships  were  built  in  a  program  calling  for  fifty  ships  a  year  for 
ten  years.  Shipyards  were  put  in  good  order  so  that  when 
war  came  the  shipbuilding  industry  was  ready  to  expand 
operations  rapidly.  Officials  say  the  Merchant  Marine  Act 
advanced  the  nation's  wartime  shipbuilding  program  by  at 
least  two  years. 

Shipbuilding  Magic 

Prefabrication  and  welding  have  enabled  American  ship- 
builders to  break  all  records  in  turning  out  ships.  No  longer 
do  they  lay  the  keel  and  then  build  upward,  riveting  one  plate 
at  a  time  until  the  hull  is  finished.  Today  huge  two-hundred- 
ton  sections  are  fabricated  near  by  and  then  lifted  in  place  by 
cranes.  Prefabrication  has  enabled  Henry  J.  Kaiser's  yards  to 
cut  shipbuilding  time  from  months  and  weeks  to  days  and 
hours. 

Welding  of  plates  not  only  saves  time  but  economizes  on 
man  power,  because  one  welder  can  join  almost  twice  as 
many  plates  in  a  day  as  can  a  three-man  riveting  crew.  Weld- 
ing saves  steel,  because  it  does  away  with  overlaps  and  the 
backup  plates  behind  each  seam  where  the  large  outer  plates 
come  together.  Elimination  of  overlaps,  as  well  as  thousands 
of  rivets,  cuts  down  weight  and  permits  ships  to  carry  more 


no  Miracles  Ahead! 

cargo.  This  development,  and  greater  use  of  steel  alloys  and 
light  metals  in  postwar  ships,  will  give  shipping  companies 
the  faster  ships  needed  to  compete  with  foreign  vessels  and 
also  with  air  transport. 

Shipbuilders  have  set  records  in  ship  production,  and  ship- 
ping companies  have  exceeded  past  standards  in  seeing  that 
every  possible  foot  of  cargo  space  in  these  vessels  is  utilized. 

"In  concrete  benefit  to  the  war,"  wrote  William  Bloeth, 
New  York  World-Telegram  financial  writer,  "the  industry 
has  delivered  more  goods  per  ship  and  more  goods  over-all. 
The  most  worthwhile  of  these  contributions  has  been  the 
reduction  of  what  is  known  as  'broken  stowage,'  a  term  for 
the  waste  space  on  a  ship.  The  progress  is  freely  called  'mirac- 
ulous' both  by  experienced  shipping  men  and  by  officials  of 
the  War  Shipping  Administration. 

"Where,  normally,  a  broken  stowage  of  between  25  and 
30  per  cent  was  expected  on  a  ship,  careful  attention  to  all 
details  by  experienced  shipping  men  has  trimmed  this  in  war 
shipping  to  about  14  per  cent  on  some  routes.  The  figure  is 
even  more  satisfactory  in  the  light  of  the  fact  that  absolutely 
no  waste  space  is  physically  impossible,"  Bloeth  adds. 

"Spaces  between  deck  beams,  where  no  cargo  could  be 
stowed  without  lifting  the  deck  and  installing  specially  de- 
signed packages,  still  are  computed  in  the  theoretical  capacity 
of  a  ship.  Even  with  free-flowing  grains,  which  can  pour  into 
all  crevices,  100  per  cent  is  impossible.  Even  more  significance 
is  added  by  the  fact  that  war  cargo  is  'balloon'  cargo,  taking 
up  too  much  space  for  the  weight  involved.  Military  vehicles 
and  tanks  are  the  worst  space-eaters  and  are  important  items 
in  the  cargoes  being  carried.  The  difficulty  stems  from  the 
fact  that  a  ship's  capacity  is  limited  by  both  weight  and  space. 
Bulky  items  don't  add  up  to  the  peak  weight,  and  heavy  loads 
that  hit  the  maximum  weight  before  the  holds  are  filled  are 
considered  bad  stowage.  These  factors  necessitate  minute 


By  Land  and  Sea  in 

preparations  and  carefully  worked-out  plans,  despite  the  need 
for  wartime  speed." 

These  wartime  lessons  in  proper  stowage  of  cargo  will 
prove  valuable  to  shipping  companies  in  postwar  years.  They 
will  have  better  ships,  and  also  use  them  to  greater  advantage 
on  world  trade  routes. 


The  Diesels  Step  Ahead 

In  June,  1943,  Captain  Lisle  F.  Small  told  a  meeting  of  the 
Society  of  Automotive  Engineers  that  the  United  States 
Navy,  under  pressure  of  war,  is  undergoing  a  "revolutionary 
process  of  dieselization."  He  said  that  at  the  end  of  the  first 
World  War  the  Navy  had  Diesel  engines  only  in  submarines 
and  the  total  horsepower  of  all  of  them  was  only  150,000. 
Now  Diesels  are  "chunging"  away  to  the  total  tune  of 
12,000,000  horsepower  on  craft  of  all  kinds,  ranging  from  the 
mighty  45,000  ton  Iowa  down  to  landing  barges  and  the 
humblest  tugboat. 

"There  has  been  a  progressive  slimming  down  of  pounds 
per  horsepower  as  new  types  of  Diesels  evolved,"  Captain 
Small  declared.  "In  1918  the  engines  of  most  of  our  sub- 
marines weighed  66.5  pounds  per  horsepower.  The  big  Diesels 
in  the  German  pocket  battleship  Spee,  destroyed  in  the  mouth 
of  the  Plate  River  early  in  the  war,  had  got  the  weight  down 
to  28  pounds  per  horsepower." 

Improvements  in  Diesel  design  also  speeded  their  use  in 
cargo  vessels.  The  Maritime  Commission's  fifty-ships-a-year 
program,  begun  in  1936,  included  a  large  number  of  Diesel 
motorships.  The  Donald  McKay,  first  motorship  completed, 
was  rated  one  of  the  best  cargo  ships  ever  launched.  Our 
greatly  expanded  wartime  shipbuilding  program  called  for 
the  construction  of  Liberty  and  Victory  ships  using  recipro- 
cating steam  engines,  which  were  the  easiest  to  build  in  the 


ii2  Miracles  Ahead! 

emergency.  But  the  Maritime  Commission  also  authorized  the 
building  of  smaller  numbers  of  ships  in  its  long-range  pro- 
gram— cargo  ships  of  the  C-i,  C-2,  and  C-3  types  that  use 
either  Diesel  or  turbine  power  and  can  be  used  after  the  war. 
In  addition,  some  of  the  slow-moving  Liberty  ships,  which 
would  not  be  considered  economical  in  normal  times,  may  be 
converted  to  Diesel  motors  in  order  to  keep  them  in  service. 

The  clearest  outline  of  postwar  shipping  policy  yet  given 
by  a  government  official  was  announced  in  a  speech  in  June, 
1943,  by  Admiral  Emory  S.  Land,  chairman  of  the  Maritime 
Commission  and  War  Shipping  Administrator.  He  visualized 
a  record-breaking  peacetime  merchant  fleet  of  from  fifteen 
million  to  twenty  million  tons,  and  also  advocated  the  adop- 
tion of  tramp  shipping  as  a  definite  part  of  the  maritime  econ- 
omy after  the  war. 

Tramp  shipping,  which  follows  no  definite  routes  or  sched- 
ules but  goes  when  and  where  cargo  may  be  found,  has  here- 
tofore been  frowned  upon  by  the  commission  as  uneconomic. 
Admiral  Land  also  favored  private  ownership,  private  opera- 
tion, and  private  construction  of  ships;  shipment  of  "a  liberal 
percentage  of  our  overseas  traffic  in  American  bottoms";  es- 
tablishment of  proper  routes,  lines,  and  services  with  a  mini- 
mum of  American  competition  necessary,  and  maintenance 
for  the  duration  of  the  commission's  policy  of  holding  title  to 
new  ships. 

"Post-war  maritime  objectives,"  Admiral  Land  declared, 
"are  not  being  overlooked  because  of  the  exigencies  of  war. 
We  are  not  losing  sight  of  the  objective  manifestly  set  up  in 
the  Merchant  Marine  Act  of  1936  which  gives  the  Maritime 
Commission  the  duty  of  proper  rehabilitation  of  the  merchant 
marine. 

"In  order  to  plan  properly  for  the  after-the-war  period," 
he  added,  "consideration  must  be  given  to  the  probable  fleet 
under  the  American  flag  that  will  be  in  existence  at  the  end 


By  Land  and  Sea  113 

of  the  war.  We  should  definitely  ear-mark  for  United  States 
commerce  a  modern  fleet  of  from  15,000,000  to  20,000,000 
deadweight  tons.  As  a  nation  of  135,000,000  people,  we  are 
entitled  to  that  tonnage.  As  the  greatest  shipbuilding  nation 
in  the  world,  we  are  entitled  to  have  it  as  modern  and  up-to- 
date  as  the  exigencies  of  war  permit." 

Airplane  and  Ship  Competition 

C.  I.  Stanton,  Civil  Aeronautics  Administrator,  has  some 
interesting  facts  and  figures  bearing  on  the  coming  battle 
between  the  airplane  and  the  ship: 

"It  is  perfectly  obvious  that  in  the  not  too  distant  future 
high-value  cargo  of  all  kinds  will  be  commonly  transported 
by  air  both  domestically  and  overseas;  planes  will  carry  pas- 
sengers, mail,  express,  and  freight  in  ever-growing  quantities. 
But  why  stretch  the  facts?  Why  claim  that  air  transportation 
will  be  the  only  form  of  transportation?  Far  from  bringing 
about  a  decrease  in  surface  traffic,  expanded  air  traffic  will 
increase  it,  for  the  fuel  to  keep  the  planes  in  the  air  will  have 
to  be  hauled  by  surface  craft. 

"A  Clipper  can  carry  8 1/2  tons  of  freight  from  New  York 
to  England  if  it  refuels  in  Newfoundland,  whereas  a  10,000- 
ton  surface  freighter  can  carry  from  six  to  eight  thousand  tons 
of  cargo,  together  with  fuel  and  stores  for  the  round  trip. 
Therefore  a  good  many  hundred  Clipper  trips  would  be 
needed  to  carry  the  tonnage  which  one  io,ooo-ton  water- 
borne  freighter  can  handle  on  one  voyage.  Furthermore,  8,500 
tons  of  gasoline  would  have  to  be  got  to  England  to  fuel 
these  hundreds  of  Clipper  trips  back  to  Newfoundland,  and 
10,500  tons  would  have  to  be  got  to  Newfoundland  to  fuel 
them  between  Newfoundland  and  England  and  Newfound- 
land and  New  York.  Thus  more  than  two  surface  freighter 
loads  of  gasoline  must  be  carried  to  Newfoundland  and  Eng- 


ii4  Miracles  Ahead! 

land  to  permit  the  air  delivery  of  a  cargo  which  one  freighter 
could  carry  across.  This  more  than  doubles  the  surface  ves- 
sel cargo  tonnage  requirements.  The  more  planes  that  fly,  the 
more  ships  will  have  to  sail." 

Cargo  ships  do  not  appear  to  have  much  to  fear  from  air- 
transport competition  in  the  next  few  years.  But  ocean  liners 
may  be  hard  hit,  and  it  is  not  likely  that  any  new  Queen 
Marys  or  Normandies  will  be  built  in  the  future.  Nations 
whose  national  pride  gives  them  a  big-ship  complex  would  do 
well  to  concentrate  on  luxury  air  liners  for  high-speed  ocean 
trips  and  to  build  smaller  passenger  ships,  which  stress  com- 
fort, recreation,  and  safety. 


VIII 

YOUR  NEW  SERVANTS:   THE 
ELECTRONIC   "WATCHMEN" 

THE  SCIENCE  of  electronics  is  the  open-sesame  to  the  doors  of 
a  miracle  world.  To  date  it  has  opened  the  door  to  the  won- 
ders of  radio,  sound  moving  pictures,  and  a  great  number  of 
aids  of  which  we  are  scarcely  yet  aware.  In  the  world  of 
tomorrow  the  electronic  "watchmen"  will  protect  your  chil- 
dren from  the  prowling  marauder  and  also  from  the  deadly 
virus  of  infantile  paralysis  and  other  diseases  that  we  have  not 
yet  conquered.  A  billion  electronic  "traffic  policemen"  will 
stand  guard  night  and  day  to  apprehend  the  speeding  motor- 
ist and  stop  him  at  the  next  intersection,  thereby  reducing  the 
hazards  of  driving.  Thousands  upon  thousands  of  factory 
workers  will  be  freed  from  the  deadly  monotony  and  fatigue 
of  the  assembly  line  while  electronic  "workmen"  watch  the 
presses,  the  conveyor  belts,  and  the  machinery;  they  will  do 
all  the  checking,  wrapping,  sorting,  packing,  and  counting  in 
the  future. 

In  the  home  there  will  be  more  than  a  dozen  swift,  silent 
electronic  "maids"  at  the  beck  and  call  of  the  homemaker, 
freeing  her  from  the  drudgery  of  housekeeping.  So  far  it  has 
been  possible  to  develop  electronic  robots  for  almost  every 
imaginable  task — and  a  good  many  that  most  of  us  would  not 
imagine. 

The  war,  which  of  necessity  has  stopped  production  and 
development  in  many  fields,  has  given  a  tremendous  accelera- 
tion to  the  development  of  all  things  electronic.  Mass  pro- 
duction of  electronic  equipment  has  increased  by  fantastic 

"5 


n6  Miracles  Ahead! 

leaps  and  bounds.  Mass  production  of  other  equipment  has 
owed  its  tremendous  growth  to  electronic  devices.  Radio  fre- 
quency has  cut  the  drying  time  of  one  type  of  plywood  from 
three  days  to  three  minutes.  Electronic  eyes  study  a  machine 
whirling  at  seven  thousand  revolutions  per  minute  as  though 
it  were  standing  still,  diagnosing  the  most  minute  flaw  in  its 
moving  parts  before  that  flaw  becomes  serious  enough  to 
cause  a  breakdown.  Electronic  research  goes  on  apace.  In 
November,  1942,  the  R.C.A.  Radio-Electronic  Laboratories 
were  dedicated.  Housed  within  a  building  almost  five  hundred 
feet  long  are  one  hundred  and  fifty  laboratories  where  the 
secret  weapons  of  today  are  being  developed  to  win  the  war, 
and  where  new  electronic  wonders  will  become  handmaidens 
of  tomorrow's  miracle  world. 

Edison  Discovered  the  Secret 

As  far  back  as  1883  Thomas  Edison  discovered  the  secret 
which  is  the  basis  of  electronics  today.  He  was  experiment- 
ing with  his  new  invention,  the  electric-light  bulb.  He  found 
that  when  he  sealed  a  metal  plate  into  the  bulb,  and  con- 
nected that  plate  to  the  positive  charge  of  a  battery,  current 
flowed  from  the  heated  filament  of  his  light  bulb  to  the  posi- 
tively charged  plate.  Current  was  flowing  across  empty  space! 
Edison  patented  his  discovery,  and  it  has  since  been  known 
as  the  "Edison  effect."  But  the  patent  ran  out  before  Edison 
attempted  to  develop  it  further. 

Twenty-one  years  later,  Professor  J.  A.  Fleming  developed 
this  Edison  effect  into  a  vacuum  tube  which  was  called  the 
"Fleming  valve,"  and  put  this  effect  of  current  flow  by  "ther- 
mionic emission"  to  work.  Edison  had  already  stumbled  on 
the  fact  that,  if  a  substance  is  sealed  in  a  vacuum  tube  and 
heated,  electrons  will  be  emitted  from  it,  or  evaporated,  just 
as  we  can  evaporate  a  pan  of  water  by  applying  heat  and 
boiling  it  rapidly. 


Your  New  Servants:  The  Electronic  "Watchmen"     117 

If  we  seal  a  piece  of  tungsten  wire  into  a  glass  tube,  and 
draw  all  the  air  out  of  the  tube,  and  heat  the  wire,  electrons 
will  be  emitted  or  evaporated  from  the  wire.  If  we  seal  another 
piece  of  metal,  called  a  plate  or  anode,  into  the  tube,  and  con- 
nect the  tube  into  an  electric  circuit  so  that  there  is  a  positive 
charge  on  the  plate  side  of  the  circuit,  the  electrons  which 
are  emitted  from  the  tungsten  filament  or  cathode  will  jump 
through  the  space  between  the  cathode  and  plate,  and  current 
will  flow  across  empty  space. 

If  the  plus  charge  on  the  plate  is  increased,  more  and  more 
electrons  will  be  drawn  to  the  plate  and  more  and  more  cur- 
rent will  flow.  If  the  charge  on  the  plate  is  changed  to  a  nega- 
tive charge,  or  an  excess  of  electrons,  the  current  will  not 
flow. 

Thus  the  diode,  or  two-element  vacuum  tube,  gives  us  a 
one-way  path  for  the  flow  of  electric  current.  If  we  wish  to 
change  alternating  current  into  direct,  or  one-way,  current, 
we  can  put  a  diode  in  the  circuit;  and  the  current  will  flow 
but  one  way.  We  say  the  current  has  been  rectified,  and  we 
call  a  tube  used  in  this  way  a  rectifier.  The  usefulness  of  the 
rectifier  tube  is  limited  only  by  the  amount  of  voltage  it  can 
stand  without  breaking  down.  For  a  long  time  this  was  a 
severe  limitation;  the  first  rectifiers  could  not  stand  more  than 
thirty  volts!  A  three-element  rectifier,  called  the  thyratron,  is 
capable  of  handling  tremendous  voltages. 

What  this  one  tube  can  mean  to  the  power  industry  has 
been  graphically  stated  by  Raymond  F.  Yates  in  his  article 
"The  Coming  Electric  Age"  in  the  Science  Digest: 

"The  use  of  the  new  tube  known  as  the  thyratron  will 
eventually  save  the  industry  many  millions  of  dollars  annu- 
ally. 

"For  reasons  well  known  to  technicians,  it  has  been  impos- 
sible to  transmit  anything  but  high-voltage  alternating  cur- 
rent. We  simply  do  not  know  how  to  generate  high-voltage 
direct  current,  yet  this  would  be  the  ideal  current  if  we  could 


n8  Miracles  Ahead! 

step  it  up  to  voltages  where  it  could  be  pushed  through  long 
transmission  lines  without  serious  losses. 

"The  thyratron,  purely  an  electronic  device,  promises,  for 
the  first  time  in  the  history  of  the  power  industry,  high- 
voltage  direct  current.  A  great  and  devastating  revolution  is 
threatened  in  the  transmission  of  power.  It  will,  however,  be 
a  constructive  revolution  and  one  of  great  benefit  to  both  the 
manufacturer  and  the  user  of  electric  power. 

"Because  of  line  losses  that  do  not  occur  when  high-voltage 
direct  current  is  used  and  because  of  the  great  difficulty  of 
insulating  high-voltage  alternating-current  lines,  an  alternat- 
ing-current transmission  line  designed  for  230,000  volts  would 
carry  no  less  than  300,000  volts  of  direct  current.  But  that  is 
not  all  the  story;  the  actual  power  carried  by  the  direct  cur- 
rent would  be  from  two  to  four  times  greater  than  the  power 
carried  by  the  alternating  current. 

"When  it  is  estimated  that  $1,500,000,000  has  been  invested 
in  transmission  lines,  we  begin  to  get  some  idea  of  the  prodi- 
gious possibilities  of  this  thyratron.  If  we  are  able  to  transmit 
only  twice  the  amount  of  current  over  our  existing  lines,  pub- 
lic utility  assets  will  be  created  out  of  thin  air." 

That  is  but  one  example  of  the  dramatic  possibilities  of 
vacuum  tubes  in  industry.  Even  today  they  are  used  in  more 
than  one  thousand  unexpected  ways.  Tomorrow,  who  knows? 

While  the  thyratron  is  used  as  a  rectifier,  in  the  manner  of 
a  diode,  the  thyratron  is  a  triode,  or  three-element  tube.  This 
third  element,  the  "grid,"  makes  possible  the  instantaneous 
control  of  power  by  the  tube. 

James  Stokley,  of  the  General  Electric  Research  Laborato- 
ries, gives  this  exceptionally  good  explanation  of  the  action  of 
the  grid.1 

"This  was  the  invention  of  another  American,  Lee  de  For- 
est, in  1907.  Between  filament  and  plate  he  inserted  a  small 

1  Stokley,  James,  Science  Remakes  Our  World.  New  York,  Ives  Wash- 
burn,  1942. 


Your  Neiv  Servants:  The  Electronic  "Watchmen"     1 19 

screen,  or  grid,  of  wires.  This  can  be  thought  of  as  a  Venetian 
blind.  Positively  charged,  the  same  as  the  filament,  the  blind 
is  open  and  electrons  pass  through  freely.  But  if  it  is  gradu- 
ally made  negative,  this  is  equivalent  to  closing  the  blind;  and 
the  stream  of  electrons  is  reduced  and  finally  stopped.  Such 
tubes  made  possible  a  new  function — that  of  amplification. 
.A  very  small  current  on  the  grid  can  control  the  flow  of  a 
larger  current  through  the  tube  and,  because  of  the  instantane- 
ous response,  the  quickest  variations  in  the  grid  circuit  are 
immediately  reflected  in  the  flow  from  the  plate.  .  .  . 

"Another  electron  tube  has  found  application  in  such  varied 
tasks  as  controlling  the  lighting  for  a  dance  number  on  the 
stage  of  the  Radio  City  Music  Hall  and  welding  the  metal 
shell  of  a  bombing  plane.  This  is  the  thyratron.  In  one  of  its 
largest  sizes,  it  will  control  300,000  watts  of  power  with  less 
than  half  a  watt  applied  to  its  grid!" 

After  the  war  the  average  man  will  reap  the  benefits  not 
only  of  better  electronic  equipment  of  his  own  but  of  the 
effect  of  the  speed-up  on  the  production  of  many  other  arti- 
cles by  the  introduction  of  electronic  devices  in  factory  pro- 
duction. Just  as  the  machine  age  in  manufacturing  made  the 
luxuries  of  yesterday  the  conveniences  of  today,  so  the  elec- 
tronic age  in  manufacturing  will  make  the  luxuries  of  today 
the  conveniences  of  tomorrow. 

Radar 

When  droves  of  German  Stukas  came  over  England  in  the 
historic  Battle  of  Britain,  Radar  teamed  up  with  R.A.F.  Spit- 
fires  and  Hurricanes  to  save  the  day.  Radar  warned  the  Eng- 
lish pilots  long  before  the  German  planes  were  overhead.  It 
enabled  "the  few"  to  conserve  ,  their  strength,  to  get  off  the 
ground  in  time,  to  concentrate  their  forces  where  needed,  and 
to  fly  at  an  altitude  which  would  give  them  the  needed  advan- 
tages over  enemy  forces  which  vastly  outnumbered  them. 


i2o  Miracles  Ahead! 

The  Radar  "eye"  in  the  nose  of  R.A.F.  night  fighter  planes 
informed  the  pilot  when  a  Nazi  was  within  range  and  per- 
mitted the  defending  planes  to  hunt  down  the  enemy  even  in 
the  blackest  night. 

Radar  gets  much  of  the  credit  for  saving  Britain.  It  might 
have  saved  many  ships  and  lives  at  Pearl  Harbor.  The  United 
States  Army  Signal  Corps  Radar  installation  was  not  sleeping 
on  the  morning  of  December  7,  1941.  Private  Lockhard  (now 
Lieutenant  Lockhard,  wearer  of  the  D.S.M.)  was  getting  in 
some  extra  practice  on  the  Radar  equipment  when  he  spotted 
a  large  flight  of  planes  more  than  half  an  hour's  flying  time 
from  Pearl  Harbor.  He  reported  this  information  to  his  supe- 
rior. But  the  officer  knew  (as  the  Japs  probably  also  knew) 
that  a  large  number  of  American  planes  were  due,  so  he  sus- 
pected nothing.  The  rest  of  the  story  is  well  known. 

What  is  Radar?  Radar  uses  a  principle  which  is  as  familiar 
to  us  as  an  echo.  Radio  waves  at  very  high  frequencies,  called 
U.H.F.  for  "ultrahigh  frequencies,"  travel  in  a  straight  line 
and  behave  like  a  beam  of  light.  They  cannot  be  reflected 
back  from  the  ionosphere,  as  can  the  longer  waves  of  our 
everyday  broadcast  band.  But  they  can  be  reflected  back  from 
a  metal  object.  Therefore,  if  they  hit  a  metal  object,  such  as  a 
ship,  a  plane,  or  a  submarine,  they  will  bounce  back  in  a 
straight  line  toward  the  transmitter  which  shot  them  out  into 
space.  If  there  is  a  receiver  located  at  the  point  of  the  trans- 
mitter, these  radio  waves  can  be  picked  up  when  they  bounce 
back.  And  by  timing  the  return  in  millionths  of  a  second,  the 
receiver  equipment  can  tell  just  how  long  it  took  the  radio 
waves  to  go  out,  strike  this  object,  and  bound  back,  and,  con- 
sequently, just  how  far  away  the  object  is. 

Radar  is  not  so  "new"  a  discovery  as  the  layman  might 
think.  Twenty-one  years  ago  Dr.  A.  Hoyt  Taylor  and  Leo 
C.  Young,  now  superintendent  and  assistant  superintendent 
of  the  radio  division  of  the  Naval  Research  Laboratory,  dis- 
covered that  high-frequency  waves  would  bounce  back  from 


Your  New  Servants:  The  Electronic  "Watchmen"     1 2 1 

metal  objects,  as  an  echo  bounces  from  a  wall  or  a  mountain- 
side. With  the  first  detection  devices  it  was  possible  only  to 
determine  that  there  was  a  metal  object  somewhere  within 
range  of  the  radio  waves.  Today  a  Radar  unit,  trained  on  an 
enemy  field,  can  tell  the  Radar  operator  the  instant  planes 
take  off  from  that  field,  how  far  away  they  are,  how  many 
there  are,  at  what  altitude  they  are  flying,  and  at  what  speed. 
Thus  it  is  possible  for  the  Radar  operators  and  their  assistants 
to  plot  the  course  of  the  enemy  planes  and  to  determine  to 
the  split  second  when  they  will  reach  a  given  point,  and  the 
planes  of  the  home  defense  can  keep  a  very  unexpected  ren- 
dezvous with  the  enemy  planes  at  a  point  of  their  choice. 

The  principle  of  Radar  detection  is  likewise  in  use  in  direct- 
ing gunfire.  Hanson  W.  Baldwin,  of  the  New  York  Times, 
reports  a  striking  incident  of  the  effectiveness  of  radio  direc- 
tion of  gunfire  in  a  naval  battle: 

"Radar  enabled  one  of  our  modern  battleships  in  a  night 
action  in  the  Solomons  to  locate,  fire  at  and  straddle  on  the 
first  salvo  a  Japanese  battleship  eight  miles  away. 

"The  Japanese  ship  was  never  actually  seen  by  our  men 
until  after  she  had  been  hit  and  was  afire.  Radar  also  played 
a  role  in  various  British  naval  victories  in  the  Mediterranean. 

"Radar  is  also  of  major  importance  in  controlling  the  fire 
of  antiaircraft  guns,  and  at  night  has  replaced,  or  supple- 
mented searchlights." 

It  is  the  history  of  many  scientific  developments  that  their 
underlying  principles  are  discovered,  often  simultaneously,  in 
different  countries  of  the  world.  Thus,  while  the  American 
scientists  were  developing  our  version  of  Radar,  in  England 
a  Scot,  Robert  Alexander  (now  Sir  Robert)  Watson- Watt, 
was  developing  Great  Britain's  version  of  Radar,  which  was 
to  help  win  the  Battle  of  Britain.  It  is  known  that  Axis  coun- 
tries likewise  have  their  version  of  Radar.  Therefore  the  race 
in  detection  is  a  race  to  develop  an  instrument  increasingly 
more  effective,  with  a  longer  range  and  a  more  accurate  deter- 


122  Miracles  Ahead! 

mination  of  the  distance  and  direction  of  its  target  and  the 
nature  of  the  object  it  has  spotted. 

The  lessening  of  the  U-boat  menace  in  recent  months  can 
very  largely  be  attributed  to  the  increased  use  of  Radar  detect- 
ing devices.  Time  was  when  the  U-boat  raider,  lying  on  the 
surface  on  a  pitch-black  night,  recharging  batteries,  was  as 
safe  as  he'd  be  under  the  surface.  Now  the  Radar  opera- 
tor can  spot  the  surfaced  U-boat,  even  though  the  night 
hides  him  or  a  blanket  of  fog  covers  him,  and  direct  the  bomb- 
ing plane  unerringly  to  the  target.  The  U-boat  never  sees  the 
plane  approaching — may  not  even  hear  it.  Without  warning, 
bombs  whistle  through  the  black  night  and  one  more  U-boat 
goes  down  for  the  last  time. 

Just  as  Radar,  supersleuth,  helped  win  the  Battle  of  Brit- 
ain, so  it  is  helping  now  to  win  the  battle  over  the  U-boat 
menace.  What  of  the  peacetime  uses  of  this  wartime  miracle? 
The  editors  of  Newsiveek  summarize  its  possibilities  thus: 

"The  development  is  significant  for  peace  as  well  as  war. 
It  promises  a  peacetime  future  in  which  collisions  at  night 
between  airplanes,  or  between  airplanes  and  mountains,  will 
be  impossible.  Pilots  can  also  take  off  from  and  land  on  fog 
bound  airdromes  with  perfect  security.  There  will  be  no 
such  necessity  as  'blind  flying.' 

"Ships  will  be  able  to  enter  and  leave  harbors  despite  fogs 
that  now  make  them  helpless.  And  the  perfection  of  'beam 
communications'  or  the  sending  out  of  extremely  narrow 
channels  of  electric  signals,  to  be  picked  up  by  receivers 
aboard  airplanes,  will  aid  the  navigation  of  every  amateur 
pilot." 

Radio-Frequency  Heating 

One  of  the  most  dramatic  developments  in  manufactur- 
ing today  is  the  widespread  application  of  R.F.,  or  radio- 


Your  New  Servants:  The  Electronic  "Watchmen"     123 

frequency,  heating.  Induction  heating  has  been  used  for  many 
years.  R.F.  heating  is  induction  heating  "stepped  up"  to  radio- 
frequency  speeds.  Two  methods  of  induction  heating  are 
used:  electromagnetic  heating  is  used  for  materials,  such  as 
metals,  in  which  electric  current  flows  easily;  electrostatic 
heating  is  used  for  materials,  such  as  wood  and  plastics,  in 
which  electric  current  does  not  flow  easily. 

In  its  simplest  terms  the  process  of  electromagnetic  heat- 
ing may  be  explained  thus.  A  current  flowing  through  a  wire 
sets  up  a  magnetic  field  around  the  wire.  If  the  wire  is  wound 
into  a  coil,  the  magnetic  field  will  flow  through  the  coil. 
Every  time  the  direction  of  the  current  in  the  coil  of  wire 
changes,  the  direction  of  the  magnetic  field  changes  too.  This 
changing  magnetic  field  will  set  up  or  induce  a  voltage  or  elec- 
tric pressure  in  a  piece  of  metal  which  is  inserted  in  the  coil, 
and  cause  current  to  flow  in  the  metal.  The  resistance  of  the 
metal  to  this  flow  of  current  causes  the  metal  to  heat.  Thus  the 
term  "induction  heating"  or  heating  caused  by  an  induced 
current. 

With  nonconductive  materials,  such  as  wood,  "capacity" 
heating  is  used.  The  material  to  be  heated  is  placed  between 
two  metal  plates.  As  a  constantly  changing  current  causes  a 
multitude  of  electrons  to  strike  one  of  the  plates,  the  electrons 
are  driven  from  the  other  plate,  or  "repelled"  from  it,  just  as 
the  two  south  poles  of  a  magnet  are  repelled  from  each  other. 
At  the  next  instant,  when  a  reversal  of  current  drives  elec- 
trons to  the  other  plate,  the  electrons  on  the  first  plate  are 
repelled  from  it.  The  material  between  the  plates,  as  an  inno- 
cent bystander,  is  caught  in  the  thick  of  the  argument.  It  feels 
the  electric  stress  across  it  as  the  electrons  on  the  two  metal 
plates  repel  each  other.  The  electrons  within  the  material  are 
not  easily  freed  from  their  atoms;  but  they  do  feel  the  tug  of 
this  stress  and  they  are  displaced  slightly,  first  to  one  side  and 
then  to  the  other.  This  displacement  causes  friction  and 


124  Miracles  Ahead! 

induces  heat  in  the  wood  or  plastic,  just  as  the  current  flow 
in  the  metal  induces  heat. 

In  any  type  of  induction  heating,  the  speed  with  which 
the  current  changes  direction  increases  the  speed  with  which 
the  heat  can  be  developed  in  the  material  being  heated.  We 
can  comprehend  the  speed-up  which  results  when  induction 
heating  is  applied,  not  at  the  typical  sixty  cycles  per  second  of 
our  standard  A.C.  but  at  perhaps  sixty  million  cycles  per  sec- 
ond of  R.F.  heating. 

When  Malaya  and  the  Netherlands  East  Indies  fell  into 
Japanese  hands,  more  than  half  the  world's  supply  of  tin  fell 
into  their  hands  too.  When  our  precious  supply  of  tin  was  so 
sharply  curtailed,  R.F.  heating  saved  the  day.  R.F.  heating 
tripled  our  supply  of  tin  overnight,  by  making  it  possible  to 
coat  our  tin  cans  with  a  coating  one-third  as  thick  as  the  coat- 
ing formerly  used.  And  resistance  welding,  which  likewise 
uses  heat  at  R.F.  speeds  of  control,  has  eliminated  the  use  of 
soldering  in  many  places  where  it  was  heretofore  used,  free- 
ing solder,  which  contains  tin,  for  uses  where  it  is  still  impera- 
tive. 

When  it  became  more  and  more  desirable  to  use  plastics 
and  bonded  plywoods  in  the  construction  of  planes,  both  to 
save  metal  and  to  cut  weight,  R.F.  heating  again  came  to  the 
rescue.  The  bottleneck  in  plywoods  and  plastics  was  the  slow 
drying  time.  And  R.F.  heating  has  broken  this  bottleneck, 
giving  us  next  year's  production  of  propellers  by  tomorrow 
afternoon! 

X-Raying  Steel 

The  industrial  use  of  X  ray  is  speeding  production  as 
efficiently  as  the  widespread  use  of  R.F.  heating.  A  three- 
hundred-thousand-volt  X-ray  machine  is  used  to  "see"  through 
four  inches  of  steel,  finding  flaws  in  casts  and  weldings  while 


Your  New  Servants:  The  Electronic  "Watchmen"     125 

they  are  merely  flaws  and  have  not  become  the  cause  of  a 
tragic  failure  that  could  cost  the  lives  of  men.  Recently  a  mil- 
lion-volt machine  was  used  to  "see"  through  eight-inch  armor 
plate,  and  a  new  one-hundred-million-volt  "induction  elec- 
tron accelerator"  is  being  developed;  so  the  future  possibili- 
ties promise  detection  of  flaws  in  even  more  massive  castings. 

Airplanes  are  now  being  examined  by  X-ray  units  which 
can  see  through  five  inches  of  steel,  detecting  any  flaws. 
Tomorrow,  when  this  equipment  is  generally  available  for 
commercial  planes,  it  will  save  countless  hours  of  checking 
time  and  many  lives. 

The  X-ray  diffraction  camera  is  used  to  show  not  merely 
the  flaws  in  a  material  but  every  element  which  goes  into 
making  that  material.  The  slightest  variation  in  a  substance 
can  be  detected  as  quickly  as  we  could  distinguish  chocolate 
from  angel  cake. 

The  Photoelectric  Tube 

One  of  the  most  interesting  vacuum  tubes  in  common  use 
today  is  the  photoelectric  tube.  In  this  tube  the  filament  is 
coated  with  caesium  or  another  metal  which  will  emit  elec- 
trons when  light  falls  on  the  metal  surface.  When  light  shines 
on  the  tube,  current  flows;  when  something  casts  a  shadow 
on  the  tube,  the  current  stops  instantly.  By  using  various  color 
filters  with  the  tube,  it  can  be  made  to  respond  to  one  color 
and  not  to  another. 

If  the  current  from  a  photoelectric  tube  is  fed  to  the  grid 
of  such  a  triode  as  the  thyratron,  it  can  start  and  stop  large 
currents — thus  starting  and  stopping  heavy  machinery.  It  is 
this  tube  which  turns  on  a  fountain  as  you  bend  to  drink; 
your  head  interrupts  the  current  flow,  a  switch  is  released, 
and  the  water  is  turned  on.  It  is  this  tube  which  opens  a  heavy 
door  as  you  approach.  Your  shadow  interrupts  the  light  beam 


Miracles  Ahead! 

on  the  tube,  and  the  current  flow;  a  switch  is  released,  and  a 
spring  opens  the  door. 

Phototubes  are  helping  to  speed  the  war  effort  in  many 
places.  In  plants  where  trucks  come  in  and  out  of  doors  sev- 
eral times  a  day,  the  phototube  opens  the  door.  How  long 
does  it  take  a  truck  driver  to  stop  his  truck  at  a  door,  climb 
down,  open  the  door,  climb  back  up  in  the  truck,  start  his 
truck,  roll  through  the  open  door,  stop  his  truck  again,  climb 
down,  close  the  door,  climb  up  in  his  truck  again,  and  roll 
on  his  way?  Half  a  minute?  Multiply  that  half  minute  by  a 
hundred  starts  and  stops  for  a  thousand  trucks,  and  the  loss 
in  man-minutes  becomes  a  loss  in  man-hours.  A  doorman  on 
the  job  could  save  the  truckman's  time.  But  today  we  cannot 
spare  a  man  to  "stand  and  wait."  The  phototube  saves  that 
time  for  us.  As  the  truck  approaches,  the  phototube  opens 
the  door,  the  truck  rolls  through  without  stopping,  and  the 
phototube  closes  the  door  behind  it.  It  would  be  possible  to 
use  that  same  doorman  as  a  guard,  opening  the  door  for  trucks 
of  a  certain  fleet  and  refusing  admission  to  all  others.  All  that 
would  be  necessary  in  equipping  the  phototube  for  this  task 
would  be  a  color  filter  to  protect  it  from  all  light  rays  but 
those  of  a  certain  shade.  Then,  if  the  light  source  reaching 
the  tube  were  reflected  from  the  passing  trucks,  rather  than 
interrupted  by  the  passing  trucks,  only  light  reflected  from 
trucks  of  a  predetermined  color  would  pass  through  the  color 
filter  and  cause  the  current  to  flow  in  the  phototube.  In  this 
case  the  flow  of  current  rather  than  the  stopping  of  current 
would  activate  the  relays  which  operated  the  doors. 

The  ability  of  the  phototube  to  distinguish  shades  of  color 
has  been  brought  to  a  high  stage  of  perfection  in  the  spectro- 
photometer,  a  device  which  uses  the  phototube.  While  the 
human  eye  can  sometimes  distinguish  ten  thousand  different 
shades  and  colors,  the  spectrophotometer  can  distinguish  two 
million  different  shades! 


Your  New  Servants:  The  Electronic  "Watchmen"     127 

Just  as  the  phototube  can  distinguish  shades  of  color  with 
a  skill  surpassing  that  of  the  human  eye,  so  other  electronic 
watchmen  can  serve  as  inspectors  of  variations  in  weight  and 
thickness,  and  all  other  physical  properties,  and  perform  each 
of  these  processes  with  superhuman  skill  and  exactness. 

Electronic  watchmen  can  scan  a  sheet  of  metal  running  past 
at  hundreds  of  feet  a  minute,  detect  a  flaw  no  larger  than  a 
pinprick,  and  mark  the  metal  for  discard  at  that  point — and 
all  without  stopping  the  flowing  of  production.  When  a  sheet 
of  metal  is  fed  into  a  press,  electronic  watchmen  can  stand 
guard  over  the  press,  stopping  the  machinery  if  the  sheet 
varies  by  a  thickness  far  less  than  that  of  tissue  paper. 

Amateur  photographers  know  the  saving  in  film  that  results 
from  the  use  of  a  light  meter.  This  little  meter,  working  on 
the  principle  of  a  photoelectric  tube,  measures  illumination 
on  a  graduated  scale  and  tells  us  how  much  light  is  reaching 
the  meter  in  terms  of  how  much  current  flows  from  the 
photocell.  Thus  we  know  how  to  set  our  cameras  in  order 
to  get  good  pictures  in  varying  degrees  of  light. 

In  the  world  of  tomorrow  this  same  principle  will  be  used 
to  measure  illumination  in  our  homes,  schools,  and  factories. 
It  will  not  be  necessary  for  a  human  watchman  to  read  the 
meter  and  adjust  our  lighting  for  efficiency,  for  the  electronic 
watchman  will  take  care  of  that,  safeguarding  our  eyesight, 
by  turning  on  artificial  illumination  the  moment  daylight  fails. 
On  winter  days,  when  light  is  insufficient  or  fails  quickly, 
our  fallible  human  judgment  will  not  subject  us  to  an  hour 
or  more  of  eyestrain  before  we  become  aware  that  the  light 
has  dimmed. 

The  same  phototube  could  be  used  to  switch  on  the  lights 
when  one  entered  a  room  and — what  price  light  bills? — 
switch  off  the  lights  when  we  left  a  room.  There  would  be  a 
great  future  for  the  man  who  would  perfect  such  a  device 
for  installation  in  hotel  rooms!  The  device  could  count  the 


n8  Miracles  Ahead! 

people  who  entered,  and  not  switch  off  the  light  until  the  last 
person  had  left  the  room.  In  fact,  phototubes  used  to  control 
traffic  in  one-way  tunnels  exercise  just  such  ability  to  count 
even  now. 

Doubtless  we  can  all  remember  a  rime  in  our  childhood 
when  we  watched  the  pharmacist  at  the  corner  drugstore 
weighing  the  powders  for  a  prescription.  It  was  a  long  and 
tedious  process.  But,  thought  we,  it  takes  time  to  get  things 
exactly  to  a  fraction  of  an  ounce!  Today  electronic  watch- 
men can  weigh  thousands  of  objects,  instantly  discarding  any 
that  are  overweight  or  underweight  by  a  thousandth  part  of 
an  ounce — and  do  it  all  in  seconds  instead  of  minutes! 

Testing  the  Ripeness  of  a  Melon 

Electronic  inspectors  adapt  themselves  exceptionally  well 
to  conditions  where  the  ebb  and  flow  of  production  is  irregu- 
lar. When  a  sudden  spurt  of  production  occurs,  they  can 
work  tirelessly,  day  and  night,  with  unfailing  speed  and  ac- 
curacy. When  production  stops,  they  present  no  labor  prob- 
lems. Fruit  growers  have  saved  themselves  thousands  of  dollars 
by  using  electronic  inspectors  for  rapid  sorting  of  fruit. 
Overweight,  underweight,  and  off-color  fruit  is  discarded 
with  lightning  speed  as  it  whirls  by  at  a  speed  which  would 
overtax  a  corps  of  human  inspectors. 

Electronic  testers  can  even  check  the  ripeness  of  a  melon, 
and  tell  you  exactly  when  it  reaches  that  state  of  luscious  per- 
fection that  makes  it  worth  the  price!  What  a  boon  to  the 
purchaser!  And  the  electronic  tester  makes  its  test  without 
bruising  the  fruit!  What  a  boon  to  the  merchant! 

It  is  possible  that  someday  an  up-and-coming  fruit  market 
will  install  a  "melon  checker,"  just  as  the  chain  drugstore  in- 
stalls a  tube  checker  for  radio  tubes.  Surely  it  would  pay  for 
itself  in  a  short  time  if  flashing  lights  informed  the  prospec- 


Your  New  Servants:  The  Electronic  "Watchmen"     129 

tive  purchaser— "Green"  .  .  .  "Firm"  .  .  .  "Just  right!"  .  .  . 
"Dead  ripe — half  price." 

Checking  Moving  Objects 

One  of  the  most  fascinating  electronic  instruments  in  use 
today  is  the  stroboscope.  Let  us  imagine  we  are  watching  the 
process  as  an  engineer  checks  the  revolutions  per  minute  of 
a  whirling  machine.  He  will  bring  his  stroboscope,  which  in 
appearance  is  simply  a  metal  box  with  a  strong  flashlight 
in  one  end  of  it,  a  dial  on  top,  and  a  meter  he  can  read.  He 
turns  his  "flashlight"  on  the  machine  and  a  strong  glow  of 
light  illuminates  a  whirling  wheel.  It  seems  to  us  to  be  a 
steady  light,  but  in  reality  it  is  flickering  off  and  on  so  rapidly 
that  we  cannot  detect  the  flicker.  "Watch  the  wheel,"  he 
says,  and  we  watch  it.  He  turns  his  dial.  A  strange  thing 
happens.  He  has  not  touched  the  machine;  we  can  hear  it  still 
running  at  breakneck  speed.  But  there,  before  our  eyes,  the 
wheel  slows  down,  wavers,  and  stops!  Seeing  is  no  longer 
believing!  Our  ears  tell  us  the  wheel  is  still  revolving.  Our 
eyes  tell  us  it  is  standing  still.  The  engineer  reads  his  meter. 
"Fifty-five  hundred  revolutions  per  minute,"  he  says.  He  snaps 
off  the  light  of  the  stroboscope,  and  again  the  wheel  revolves 
before  our  eyes. 

How  is  this  possible?  Because  he  has  changed  the  fre- 
quency of  the  flickering  of  the  light  in  his  stroboscope  until  it 
is  going  off  and  on  at  exactly  the  speed  at  which  the  wheel 
was  revolving;  and,  therefore,  each  time  the  light  illuminated 
the  wheel,  it  caught  it  in  exactly  the  same  position. 

For  a  simple,  quick,  and  accurate  method  of  determining 
the  speed  of  a  revolving  wheel,  the  stroboscope  is  invaluable. 
Likewise,  it  may  be  used  to  detect  any  "wobble"  in  the  wheel 
which  may  develop  at  a  given  speed,  so  that  this  fault  can 
be  corrected  before  a  breakdown  occurs.  It  can  also  be  used 


130  Miracles  Ahead! 

to  illuminate  any  moving  object  while  a  camera  takes  a  series 
of  still-life  pictures  in  all  positions. 

Just  as  the  stroboscope  makes  it  possible  to  check,  study, 
and  test  a  machine  without  stopping  it,  so  other  electronic 
devices  make  it  possible  to  check  other  production  without 
stopping  the  flow  of  material.  The  colorimeter  makes  it  pos- 
sible to  check  samples  of  a  liquid  without  taking  a  sample 
and  putting  it  through  chemical  analysis.  As  the  liquid,  in 
process  of  production  or  use,  flows  through  a  glass  tube,  the 
colorimeter  analyzes  it  by  color. 

Welding  has  long  made  use  of  the  advantages  of  electronic 
controls,  for  electronic  timers  truly  can  give  the  advantage  of 
split-second  timing.  This  accurate  control  has  meant  better 
welds,  and  safer  welds,  with  unfailing  accuracy.  And  X-ray 
examination  of  welding  has  furnished  a  further  quick  check 
to  determine  perfection.  Resistance  welding  is  speeding  up 
the  process  of  welding  by  making  it  possible  not  only  to  time 
the  heat  of  a  weld  to  the  split  second  but  to  control  the 
amount  of  heat  applied  to  the  weld,  and  to  control  it  to  a 
fraction  of  a  degree. 

New  Medical  Servants 

Electronics  has  long  been  the  handmaiden  of  medicine.  The 
electrocardiograph  has  made  it  possible  to  record  the  picture 
of  the  beating  of  a  heart,  giving  the  doctor  a  far  more  accu- 
rate diagnosis  of  certain  heart  conditions  than  is  possible  by 
any  other  means.  It  has  enabled  him  to  apply  healing  measures 
to  correct  a  trouble  before  a  sudden  failure  was  the  first  warn- 
ing that  anything  was  wrong.  The  electric  knife  has  made 
bloodless  surgery  possible.  The  use  of  X  ray  in  diagnosis,  in 
setting  bones,  and  in  treating  certain  diseases  is  widespread. 
A  recent  development,  called  the  "laminograph"  can  X-ray 
a  given  layer  of  tissue,  without  recording  a  picture  of  other 


Your  New  Servants:  The  Electronic  "Watchmen"     131 

tissues.  The  electric  probe  is  cutting  from  hours  to  mere  min- 
utes the  time  of  searching  for  imbedded  bits  of  metal  in  battle 
wounds,  and  saving  many  lives. 

Perhaps  the  most  outstanding  recent  electronic  develop- 
ment, from  the  medical  point  of  view,  is  the  electron  micro- 
scope. It  is  revealing  to  our  scientists  a  world  that  was  too 
minute  for  us  to  see,  even  with  the  aid  of  the  finest  optical 
microscope.  The  electron  microscope  will  be  the  new  hand- 
maiden of  medicine — penetrating  the  hitherto  unknown  se- 
crets of  diseases  we  have  not  yet  conquered,  such  as  infantile 
paralysis  and  influenza. 

Some  of  the  greatest  developments  which  will  safeguard 
health  tomorrow  will  be  preventive  measures.  Electronic 
controls  will  make  possible  germ-free  air,  to  guard  against 
disease;  electronic  devices  will  preserve  food,  guarding  against 
contamination.  Electronic  irradiation  of  food  will  store  more 
and  more  sunshine  into  what  we  eat. 

There  are  countless  other  ways  in  which  electronic  devices 
save  time,  man  power,  and  materials  in  the  world  of  industry. 
Under  the  urgency  of  our  present  need,  these  electronic  de- 
vices are  being  used  in  ever-increasing  quantities.  After  peace 
has  come,  we,  as  consumers,  will  reap  the  benefits  of  these 
speed-ups  of  production. 

The  American  standard  of  living  has  been  raised  to  its  high 
level  by  mass  production,  with  its  slogan  of  "better,  faster, 
cheaper."  Many  of  us  can  remember  back  far  enough  to 
compare  the  prices  of  the  first  automobiles,  radios,  and  elec- 
tric refrigerators  with  those  of  today.  Time  was  when  only 
the  town's  richest  man  had  any  one  of  them,  and  when  he  got 
it  the  neighbors  gathered  to  view  his  treasure.  But  the  slogan 
of  "better,  faster,  cheaper"  has  put  them  all  within  the  reach 
of  the  average  man. 


IX 


NEW   TELEVISION  AND   RADIO 
SERVICES 

"How  MUCH  longer  will  television  be  'just  around  the  cor- 
ner'?" Many  of  us  have  been  a  little  puzzled  about  the  ex- 
tremely slow  development  of  this  field.  As  far  as  the  layman 
is  concerned,  there  seems  to  be  no  reason  why  television  sets 
should  not  have  been  manufactured  on  just  about  the  same 
scale  as  radio  sets  prior  to  America's  entry  into  the  war. 

A  glance  backward  over  the  progress  of  radio  will  reveal 
one  or  two  surprising  facts  about  this,  however.  Radio  was 
"just  around  the  corner"  in  1883  when  Thomas  Edison  dis- 
covered that  there  was  a  one-way  flow  of  electricity  through 
the  vacuum  in  an  electric-light  bulb.  Radio  seemed  to  draw 
nearer  when  in  1903  J.  A.  Fleming  developed  the  diode,  a 
two-element  vacuum  tube  which  could  turn  alternating  cur- 
rent into  direct  current.  Radio  seemed  to  have  turned  the  cor- 
ner when  in  1907  Lee  de  Forest  developed  the  triode,  or 
three-element  tube  with  the  grid — the  very  heart  of  radio.  But 
when  the  first  World  War  drew  to  a  close  in  1918  radio  was 
still  "just  around  the  corner."  Not  until  1921  did  station 
KDKA  inaugurate  broadcasting.  Even  then  the  situation 
seemed  none  too  promising. 

Briefly,  there  was  a  lapse  of  more  than  forty  years  between 
the  discovery  of  the  factors  that  form  the  basis  of  radio  trans- 
mission and  the  manufacture  and  sale  of  radio  sets  for  gen- 
eral use  by  the  public.  To  be  sure,  a  long  period  of  education 

132 


Neiv  Television  and  Radio  Services  133 

was  essential;  and  this  would  not  necessarily  be  the  case  with 
television.  But  there  are  certain  fundamental  differences  be- 
tween radio  transmission  and  reception  and  the  transmission 
of  television  that  alter  the  problem. 

In  order  to  understand  the  problems  of  bringing  television 
to  the  homes  throughout  the  length  and  breadth  of  America, 
it  is  important  to  grasp  the  difference  between  transmission  of 
the  radio  waves  used  to  transmit  sound  radio  today  and  the 
high-frequency  waves  which  are  used  to  transmit  television. 
Radio  waves  at  a  frequency  of  from  five  hundred  and  fifty 
to  fifteen  hundred  kilocycles  can  travel  great  distances  because 
they  are  reflected  back  from  the  ionosphere,  a  layer  of  charged 
particles  which  encircles  the  earth.  While  the  "ground  waves" 
from  a  radio  station  might  travel  in  a  straight  line  from  the 
transmitting  antenna  thirty  or  forty  miles,  these  "sky  waves" 
which  are  reflected  may  shoot  out  into  space  two  hundred 
miles  or  more;  strike  the  ionosphere;  and  be  reflected  back  to 
earth  several  times,  traveling  halfway  around  the  earth  or 
even  farther. 

But  the  waves  at  the  frequencies  used  to  transmit  television 
are  not  reflected  back  to  earth.  They  travel  in  a  straight  line, 
so  that  they  can  be  sent  only  as  far  as  one  can  see  from  the 
antenna  which  is  transmitting  them.  Of  course,  the  higher  the 
antenna  the  farther  the  waves  can  be  sent.  But  even  from 
the  highest  antenna  available  today,  television  reception  can- 
not be  depended  on  farther  away  than  an  area  fifty  miles  wide 
around  the  transmitting  station.  We  know  that  the  networks 
of  sound-radio  stations  are  hooked  up  by  telephone  lines.  But 
telephone  cables  cannot  transmit  television  in  a  satisfactory 
manner.  The  only  type  of  cable  which  is  satisfactory  is  a 
type  called  "coaxial,"  and  the  expense  of  laying  but  one  co- 
axial cable  across  the  continent  would  run  into  millions  of 
dollars. 


134  Miracles  Ahead! 

Television  Service  in  England 

In  England,  where  distances  are  not  such  a  barrier  to  cov- 
erage of  the  country  with  television,  there  had  been  some  very 
interesting  developments  up  to  the  time  of  the  present  conflict. 

F.  W.  Camm1  reports  that  the  B.B.C.  first  incorporated 
television  transmission  in  its  programmes  in  August  of  1932. 
Before  that  date  the  only  programmes  were  those  transmitted 
from  the  Baird  Company's  transmitting  station  at  Long  Acre, 
London.  They  passed  by  land-line  to  Savoy  Hill  (2  LO),  and 
thence  to  Brookman's  Park.  Later  a  studio  was  specially  set 
aside  at  Portland  Place  (Broadcasting  House)  for  television 
programmes  on  the  Baird  System. 

Mr.  Camm  tells  of  another  fascinating  development  of  tel- 
evision, which  is  called  "noctovision": 

"Another  development  of  television  is  to  be  found  in  the 
utilization  of  the  infra-red  rays  for  the  illumination  of  the 
subject  being  televised  or  transmitted.  As  is  well  known  these 
rays  are  invisible,  and  they  are  already  frequently  employed 
in  burglar  alarms,  etc.  If,  therefore,  the  object  to  be  trans- 
mitted is  placed  in  a  darkened  room,  and  is  scanned  by  means 
of  infra-red  rays,  the  light  variations  would  still  be  recorded 
by  the  photo-electric  cells  and  the  image  could  be  transmitted, 
even  though  in  complete  darkness.  This  opens  up  possibilities 
of  seeing  by  night  and  a  use  for  television  in  times  of  war  is 
thus  produced." 

Television  Prospects  in  America 

It  is  reasonable  to  expect  that  after  the  war  we  will  see  a 
sudden  expansion  of  the  manufacture  of  television  sets.  As 
James  Stokley  expressed  it,  "It  is  to  be  expected  that  the  dis- 

1  Camm,  F.  W.,  Television  Manual.  New  York,  Chemical  Publishing 
Company,  1943. 


New  Television  and  Radio  Services  135 

tribution  of  the  television  transmitters  doubtless  will  follow 
the  general  pattern  of  population  distribution  in  the  United 
States.  This  population  may  be  considered  as  centered  prin- 
cipally in  96  metropolitan  areas  set  up  by  the  Bureau  of  the 
Census  having  100,000  inhabitants  or  more.  .  .  . 

"These  96  metropolitan  districts  are  usually  taken  as  the 
basis  of  marketing  plans.  Although  they  comprise  only  1.2 
per  cent  of  the  land  area  of  the  United  States,  they  contain 
45  per  cent  of  its  population.  Assuming  the  maximum  service 
area  of  a  television  transmitter  to  be  25  miles  in  radius,  how- 
ever, we  find  that  96  such  transmitters  (one  in  each  metro- 
politan district  of  the  United  States)  would  lay  down  an  ade- 
quate signal  over  6  per  cent  of  the  land  area  and  more  than 
50  per  cent  of  the  population.  .  .  . 

"To  choose  an  obvious  example,  New  York  is  the  first  city 
of  the  United  States  to  have  regular  television  service  intended 
for  the  public.  The  metropolitan  district  surrounding  New 
York  comprises  8.9  per  cent  of  the  nation's  inhabitants,  63  per 
cent  of  the  population  of  New  York  state,  72  per  cent  of 
New  Jersey's  inhabitants,  and  9  per  cent  of  Connecticut's. 
Chicago's  metropolitan  area  includes  3.6  per  cent  of  the  popu- 
lation of  the  United  States  and  57  per  cent  of  the  population 
of  the  state  of  Illinois. 

"In  the  1927  television  days,  one  experimenter  said,  'If  we 
can  tell  a  face  from  a  fish,  we  think  we're  doing  pretty  well!' 

"Modern  television,  which  is  now  being  broadcast  and  re- 
ceived by  a  small  number  of  sets  from  a  handful  of  transmit- 
ters in  a  few  cities,  is  a  vast  improvement,  and  is  approxi- 
mately equal  in  quality  to  good  home  movies.  In  1941  the 
U.  S.  Government  finally  authorized  commercial  operation 
of  television  stations,  but  the  advent  of  the  war,  and  the  cessa- 
tion of  the  building  of  civilian  radio  receivers,  halted  the 
development  which  otherwise  would  then  have  come.  How- 
ever, experimentation  did  not  entirely  cease;  some  continued 


136  Miracles  Ahead! 

with  war  applications  as  the  goal,  so  that  after  the  peace  tele- 
vision should  be  ready  for  a  rapid  enlargement,  which  will 
undoubtedly  far  surpass  that  of  sound  broadcasting  in  the 
post- World  War  I  days." 

According  to  Mr.  Stokley,  televised  moving  pictures  in 
America  have  successfully  utilized  the  device  known  as  the 
Schmidt  camera.  He  says,  "At  the  New  York  demonstration, 
the  projector  was  sixty  feet  away  from  the  screen,  yet  the 
picture,  fifteen  feet  high  and  twenty  feet  wide,  was  almost  as 
bright  as  an  ordinary  motion  picture.  Perhaps,  in  the  future, 
with  such  a  device,  theatres  will  regularly  show  programs  of 
events  happening  in  other  parts  of  the  world,  at  the  same  time 
that  they  are  occurring." 

The  Actor  Comes  into  His  Oeum 

Mr.  Lenox  R.  Lohr  gives  a  very  interesting  picture  of  the 
"behind  the  scenes"  problem  of  broadcasting  television  drama, 
as  compared  with  sound  broadcasting  and  play  production 
in  a  theater:1 

"In  first-class  theatre  productions,  at  least  several  weeks  are 
allowed  for  rehearsals  before  the  opening  night,  but  the  cost 
of  television  obliges  a  producer  and  actors  to  prepare  a  30-  or 
6o-min.  performance  for  broadcasting  in  5  to  20  hrs.  of 
rehearsal. 

"Another  requirement  of  television  production  makes  it 
difficult  for  sound-radio  actors  to  appear  on  programs.  Tele- 
vision actors  must  learn  lines  by  heart;  and  although  radio 
actors  are  skilled  in  the  subtle  shading  of  words,  they  have 
not  learned  to  coordinate  words  with  action.  By  no  rational 
process  can  we  adapt  the  usual  microphone  technique  to  tele- 
vision, because  in  television,  as  on  the  stage,  we  must  follow 

1  Lohr,  Lenox  Riley,  Television  Broadcasting.  New  York,  McGraw-Hill 
Book  Company,  Inc.,  1940. 


New  Television  and  Radio  Services  137 

Shakespeare's  prescription  and  'suit  the  action  to  the  word.' 
Even  actors  trained  for  motion  pictures  find  it  necessary  to 
adapt  themselves  to  television. 

"In  motion  pictures,  the  action  is  shot  scene  by  scene  with 
convenient  intermissions.  The  director  rehearses  his  cast  until 
he  is  satisfied  with  its  performance.  The  actor  need  not  mem- 
orize lines  for  more  than  one  or  two  scenes  at  a  time.  After 
shooting  a  long  succession  of  scenes,  the  final  picture  is  assem- 
bled by  editors  in  the  cutting  room.  The  actors  themselves 
seldom  realize  the  full  scope  of  the  action  until  they  have  seen 
the  completed  picture  on  a  screen. 

"In  television,  the  actor  must  know  his  lines  verbatim 
before  he  steps  up  to  the  camera.  There  are  no  interruptions 
or  pauses  in  a  television  performance.  There  are  no  retakes, 
such  as  may  occur  in  motion  pictures  to  achieve  an  improved 
performance.  In  television,  if  a  mistake  is  made  it  must  be 
'covered  up'  quickly  and  naturally.  This  requires  considerable 
adroitness  on  the  part  of  the  actors.  When  the  show  is  under 
way,  the  player  is  on  his  own,  for  better  or  for  worse;  and 
if  he  forgets  his  lines,  he  must  improvise.  In  television,  it  is 
hard  to  prompt  a  stumbling  actor.  The  producer  sits  in  the 
control  booth  behind  a  plate  glass  window,  and  the  only  way 
he  can  reach  an  actor  is  through  the  studio  manager  with 
whom  he  is  in  telephonic  communication.  The  actor  must 
shoulder  the  responsibility  of  making  a  scene  continuous.  . . ." 

Mr.  Lohr  believes  that  one  of  the  most  significant  fields  of 
television  broadcast  will  be  in  educational  and  news  broad- 
casts: 

"Such  material  has  contributed  much  to  the  success  of  sound 
radio,  but  introduction  of  long  verbal  dissertations  soon  tires 
the  most  patient  listener.  Television  promises  to  offset  this 
serious  handicap  to  a  large  extent,  because  it  broadcasts  ani- 
mated pictures  that  illustrate  ideas  more  rapidly  and  effec- 
tively than  words. 


138  Miracles  Ahead! 

"In  attempting  to  illustrate  radio  news  with  pictures,  we 
are  prone  to  follow  the  technique  developed  by  such  news 
magazines  as  Life,  The  Illustrated  London  News,  and  UIllus- 
tration.  .  .  .  Pictorial  news  broadcasting  may  in  time  become 
one  of  television's  most  important  public  service  functions. 
For  here  the  program  staff  has  at  its  disposal  the  means  of 
depicting  history  exactly  as  it  takes  place.  No  matter  if  a 
news  broadcast  is  unrehearsed  and  even  if  it  appears  amateur- 
ish, the  ingredients  of  drama  and  interest  are  present  to  a 
large  degree." 

In  summarizing  the  probable  future  of  television  develop- 
ment in  America,  Mr.  Lohr  said: 

"The  prices  of  the  receivers  were  admittedly  high.  They 
ranged  commonly  from  $175  to  $700  in  the  early  months;  at 
the  time  of  writing  there  seems  to  be  a  trend  toward  reduc- 
tion of  them.  A  price  of  $125  to  $250  is  within  range  of  many 
families  whose  income  is  less  than  $2,000  a  year,  but  such 
families  are  reluctant  to  part  with  so  substantial  a  sum  unless 
there  is  reasonable  assurance  that  the  receiver  will  not  become 
obsolete  rapidly. 

"This  question  of  the  cost  of  receiving  sets  is  the  basic  fac- 
tor in  obtaining  'mass  circulation'  for  the  broadcaster.  The 
necessarily  high  cost  of  the  receiver — the  technical  equivalent 
of  about  three  first-class  broadcast  receivers — can  not  be  re- 
duced without  painstaking  effort.  However,  assembly-line 
methods,  a  supply  of  used  receivers,  and  the  effect  of  compe- 
tition in  bringing  down  the  cost  of  television  sets  may  be 
counted  on  to  make  sets  widely  available  in  the  not-too- 
distant  future.  The  problem  is,  of  course,  to  market  the  re- 
ceiver at  a  price  within  reach  of  a  large  number  of  buyers, 
to  gauge  the  market  accurately,  and  to  keep  factory  capacity 
geared  to  the  demand  for  receivers." 

Mr.  Lohr  takes  a  very  levelheaded  view  of  the  possibilities 


New  Television  and  Radio  Services  139 

of  rapid  expansion  of  television,  and  his  words  of  1940  are 
equally  applicable  today: 

"Sales  areas  for  television  receivers  must  be  governed  en- 
tirely by  the  distribution  of  television  transmitters.  The  lim- 
ited range  of  television  transmitters  also  definitely  limits  the 
extent  to  which  the  entire  country  can  be  considered  a  tele- 
vision market." 

The  Fighting  Marts  "Nerve  Center" 

Today  many  peacetime  industries  have  ceased  to  function. 
Not  so  the  radio  industry.  Radios  for  civilian  use  are  not 
being  built.  There  are  no  new  designs  in  cabinets  coming  out 
at  the  moment.  But  that  is  the  only  type  of  radio  equipment 
which  is  not  being  built.  The  "engine"  of  the  radio — the 
chassis  that  is  housed  in  the  cabinet — and  all  the  parts  which 
go  to  make  up  the  "insides"  are  being  built  in  quantities 
undreamed  of  before  the  war. 

For  the  nerve  center  of  fighting  equipment  today  is  the 
radio,  and  the  vast  amount  of  radio  equipment  used  by  our 
armed  forces  is  almost  beyond  comprehension.  Every  plane 
that  rolls  off  the  assembly  line;  every  tank,  every  jeep;  every 
battleship,  cruiser,  submarine,  and  PT  boat — each  needs  its 
radio  equipment.  The  foot  soldier  has  his  "walkie-talkie"  and 
the  paratrooper  his  "jumpie-talkie." 

Even  the  rubber  life  rafts  of  the  airplanes  are  now  being 
equipped  with  radios.  Sappers  use  radio  devices  to  detect  the 
presence  of  mines,  so  that  fields  can  be  cleared  of  those  death- 
dealing  machines  before  they  can  play  havoc  with  our  advanc- 
ing forces.  There  is  a  portable  radio  station  which  can  be 
buried  on  a  hostile  shore  and  left  unattended.  For  weeks  on 
end  it  will  faithfully  transmit  information  about  the  weather, 
to  help  our  forces  plan  a  surprise  landing  at  the  right  time. 


140  Miracles  Ahead! 

Therefore,  radio  equipment — though  it  is  not  being  supplied 
for  civilian  use — is  being  built  for  the  Signal  Corps,  more  than 
three  times  as  much  of  it  every  month  as  was  ever  built  in 
peacetimes! 

Indestructible  Radios  for  the  Armed  Forces 

Not  only  is  it  being  built  in  these  tremendous  quantities, 
but  it  is  being  built  with  a  durability  never  demanded  in 
peacetime  equipment. 

The  motto  of  the  Signal  Corps  is  "Get  the  message 
through!"  Today  our  soldiers  must  get  the  message  through 
with  radio  equipment — and  do  it  under  conditions  which 
would  put  a  peacetime  radio  out  of  commission  in  ten  min- 
utes. 

Suppose  you  dropped  your  radio  into  the  bathtub  on 
Thursday,  left  it  there  overnight,  put  it  in  the  oven  Friday 
morning  and  baked  it,  put  it  in  the  electric  refrigerator  on 
Saturday  and  turned  the  cold  controls  on  so  high  that  every- 
thing in  the  icebox  became  a  brittle  stick.  And  then,  on  Sun- 
day, suppose  you  took  your  radio  for  a  ride  in  a  jeep,  and 
dashed  madly  through  a  town  where  "block  busters"  were 
exploding  with  force  enough  to  shatter  windows  a  mile  away. 
As  you  jounced  and  jolted  through  the  town,  over  shell  holes 
that  had  been  streets,  would  you  expect  to  tune  in  your 
favorite  symphony?  Would  you  demand  that  every  note  be 
clear  as  a  bell? 

But  the  Signal  Corps  must  get  the  message  through  under 
conditions  such  as  these.  On  battleships,  when  the  "kick"  of 
the  huge  guns  is  sufficient  to  shove  the  vessel  sideways  through 
the  water  as  you'd  shove  a  cake  of  soap  in  a  washbowl,  radio 
equipment  of  precision  and  delicacy  must  function  all  day 
and  all  night  and  the  next  day  too.  And  it  must  not  fail. 

On  smaller  craft,  hurtling  through  the  seas  with  mountains 


New  Television  and  Radio  Services  141 

of  salt  water  crashing  over  their  decks,  radios  must  not  fail. 

In  Flying  Fortresses,  where  a  crew  of  men  must  function 
as  one  with  split-second  timing,  communication  among  them 
must  not  fail. 

If  your  favorite  radio  serviceman  were  in  Cuba  instead  of 
around  the  corner,  you'd  want  the  durability  of  Army  radio 
equipment  in  your  peacetime  radio.  You'd  know  that  if  your 
radio  "went  bad"  you'd  lose  your  favorite  programs  for  too 
long  a  time.  The  radios  of  our  soldiers  often  must  operate  far 
from  the  nearest  serviceman.  And  if  a  soldier's  radio  goes  bad 
it  may  cost  his  life. 

For  the  radio  today  is  not  only  the  nerve  center  of  mili- 
tary strategy;  it  is  the  life  line  of  safety.  Many  of  the  most 
brilliant  developments  of  today  are  designed  to  save  the  lives 
of  our  men. 

Radio  Safety  Devices 

The  blind-landing  instruments  have  saved  the  lives  of  count- 
less flyers.  A  fighter  plane,  returning  from  a  mission,  speeds 
through  the  black  night  at  five  miles  a  minute.  The  pilot 
flicks  a  switch.  A  vertical  hairline  crosses  a  dial  toward  a  cen- 
ter mark — and  passes  that  mark.  Off  course  a  bit.  The  pilot 
changes  his  course  until  the  hairline  is  exactly  on  the  center 
mark.  He's  on  course  now,  heading  for  home.  But  how  far 
away  is  he?  That  is  a  crucial  question  when  you're  covering 
five  miles  a  minute.  A  light  on  his  dashboard  flashes.  He  has 
passed  a  marker  beacon.  Twenty  miles  to  go.  He  cuts  his 
speed.  Another  light  flashes.  Five  miles.  If  there  were  a  light 
on  his  landing  field,  he  could  see  it.  But  there  is  no  light.  He 
hurtles  into  black  nothingness.  Suddenly  a  horizontal  hairline 
appears  on  the  dial  and  climbs  toward  center.  He  smiles.  He's 
reached  his  "glide  path"  now.  A  little  high — he'd  overshoot 
his  mark.  He  brings  the  nose  down  a  bit.  The  horizontal  line 


142  Miracles  Ahead! 

wavers,  and  then  stops  on  the  center  mark  of  the  dial.  He's 
on  his  glide  path  now.  Nothing  to  do  but  hold  the  plane  there. 
Just  as  a  child  slides  down  a  sliding  board,  the  pilot  glides 
down  an  invisible  incline,  made  by  a  radio  beam,  and  sets  his 
plane  down  on  the  runway  as  smoothly  as  a  motorist  would 
drive  into  his  familiar  driveway  in  broad  daylight. 

Today  the  total  output  of  perfected  blind-landing  equip- 
ment may  go  to  our  military  needs.  But  tomorrow  such  devel- 
opments will  add  to  the  safety  of  civilian  flight. 

Today  the  absolute  altimeter  warns  our  fighter  planes  of 
just  how  high  aboveground  they  are.  Tomorrow  civilian 
planes  will  be  equipped  with  this  lifesaving  device,  and  colli- 
sions with  mountains  will  be  prevented. 

Today  the  radio  detector,  Radar,  "sees"  a  submarine  a  hun- 
dred miles  away,  and  directs  the  bomber  on  its  course  to  sink 
the  submarine.  Tomorrow  that  same  radio  detector  will  enable 
a  searching  plane  to  find  a  disabled  vessel  or  a  lifeboat  a  hun- 
dred miles  away,  at  night,  and  will  direct  the  searchers  to  the 
spot. 

The  exigencies  of  war  have  compelled  the  best  brains  of 
the  radio  and  television  fields  to  think  faster,  harder,  more 
carefully,  than  ever  before.  Future  developments  in  these 
fields  will  be  based  upon  the  phenomenal  achievements  of  the 
past  thirty  months. 

A  Word  about  Frequencies 

Since  radio  plays  such  a  vital  part  today,  and  is  destined  to 
play  even  a  greater  part  in  our  peacetime  world  of  tomor- 
row, it  behooves  us  all  to  have  some  idea  of  "just  how  radio 
works."  Hence  the  following  explanation  is  offered  to  explain 
it  briefly,  in  its  simplest  terms. 

When  we  speak  of  sending  music  or  pictures  by  electricity 
through  wires  or  through  space,  we  do  not  mean  that  the 


New  Television  and  Radio  Services  143 

actual  sound  or  picture  travels  through  the  wires  or  through 
the  air.  Electric  current  travels  through  wires;  radio  waves 
travel  through  space.  The  sound  or  picture  which  is  to  be 
sent  to  some  distant  point  by  wire  must  first  cause  a  varia- 
tion in  electric  current.  It  is  this  variation  in  electric  current 
which  is  sent  through  the  wire.  Likewise,  a  sound  or  a  pic- 
ture which  is  to  travel  by  radio  waves  through  space  must 
cause  a  variation  in  those  radio  waves.  It  is  this  variation 
which  travels  through  space. 

When  we  talk  into  a  telephone,  we  make  sound  waves  that 
travel  through  the  air  and  vibrate  against  a  metal  disk,  moving 
it.  This  vibrating  disk,  in  turn,  affects  electric  current,  which 
varies  in  time  with  the  vibrations  of  the  disk.  This  varying 
electric  current  travels  through  the  telephone  lines.  At  the 
receiver  on  the  other  end  of  the  line,  the  action  is  reversed. 
Here  the  electric  current  (which  is  varying  in  time  with  the 
disk  against  which  we  spoke)  affects  a  second  disk  in  the 
receiver  and  sets  it  in  motion.  This  second  disk,  vibrating  in 
time  with  the  variations  in  the  electric  current  (and  conse- 
quently in  time  with  the  first  disk),  starts  sound  waves  through 
the  air.  These  sound  waves  which  reach  the  ear  of  the  listener 
are  the  exact  repetition  of  the  sound  waves  which  made  the 
first  disk  vibrate. 

The  transmission  of  sound  by  radio  is  similar  to  the  trans- 
mission of  sound  by  telephone.  First  the  sound  waves  vibrate 
against  a  microphone  and  set  it  in  motion.  This  vibration  of 
the  microphone  causes  electric  current  to  vary  in  time  with 
the  vibrations  of  the  microphone.  These  variations  in  the  elec- 
tric current  are  used  to  vary  or  "modulate"  the  steady  alter- 
nating current  which  is  alternating  at  the  "frequency"  on 
which  that  transmitting  station  broadcasts.  Most  of  our  sta- 
tions today  use  A.M.,  or  "amplitude  modulation,"  varying  the 
"size"  of  the  wave.  The  P.M.  stations  use  "frequency  modu- 
lation," varying  the  frequency  of  the  wave.  Whether  A.M. 


144  Miracles  Ahead! 

or  F.M.  is  used,  the  "carrier"  wave  is  transmitted  from  the 
antenna,  varied  or  "modulated"  in  time  with  the  variations  of 
the  microphone,  just  as  the  electric  current  in  the  telephone 
lines  varies  in  time  with  the  disk  in  the  mouthpiece. 

At  the  "receiver"  in  our  homes  (just  as  at  the  receiver  of 
a  telephone)  the  process  is  reversed;  the  variations  on  the 
carrier  waves  (which  are  exactly  "in  time"  with  the  vibra- 
tions of  the  microphone  back  in  the  studio)  affect  the  cone 
of  the  loud-speaker  on  our  radio  receiver,  and  it  vibrates  in 
time  with  those  original  vibrations  and  sets  up  sound  waves 
which  repeat  the  original  sound. 

Sending  Pictures  by  Radio 

When  a  picture  is  sent  by  wire,  again  we  have  the  steps  of 
varying  or  modulating  electric  current  in  time  with  certain 
elements  in  the  picture  and,  at  the  receiver  end,  of  turning 
these  variations  into  the  picture  again.  When  a  picture  is  sent 
by  radio,  we  vary  or  modulate  the  carrier  wave  at  the  trans- 
mitter in  time  with  certain  elements  in  the  picture;  at  the 
receiver  we  "demodulate"  the  carrier  wave,  or  take  these  vari- 
ations from  it  again  and  turn  them  back  into  the  picture. 

To  understand  the  principle  of  television,  examine  a  pho- 
tograph in  a  newspaper  through  a  reading  glass.  You'll  note 
that  the  "picture"  is  made  up  of  a  series  of  dots.  The  coarser 
the  dots,  the  less  distinct  the  picture  will  be.  The  finer  the 
dots,  the  clearer  the  picture  will  be. 

If  you  were  going  to  send  this  picture  by  radio,  you  would 
"scan"  the  picture  with  a  beam  of  electrons,  beginning  at  the 
upper  left  corner,  crossing  the  picture  to  the  right  side,  mov- 
ing down  one  row  of  dots  and  crossing  the  picture  again,  and 
so  on  until  you  had  "scanned"  every  row  of  dots  from  top  to 
bottom.  Now  if  the  dots  of  the  picture  could  cause  electric 
current  to  vary,  just  as  the  vibrating  disk  of  a  microphone, 


New  Television  and  Radio  Services  145 

and  you  "modulated"  a  carrier  wave  with  these  variations, 
you  could  transmit  the  variations  of  dots  in  the  picture  just 
as  you  transmitted  the  variations  of  the  sound.  If  your  receiver 
contained  a  device  which  was  in  time  with,  or  "synchronized" 
with,  the  back-and-f orth  movement  of  the  beam  that  scanned 
the  picture,  you  could  repeat  the  picture  on  a  screen  in  your 
receiver,  a  dot  at  a  time,  just  as  it  was  picked  up  from  the 
transmitter,  a  dot  at  a  time. 

If  you  have  read  the  chapter  on  electronics,  you  will  recall 
the  photocell — a  vacuum  tube  which  contains  a  material 
that  will  emit  electrons  when  light  falls  on  it.  The  icono- 
scope, a  tube  that  is  used  in  television  to  transmit  pictures, 
contains  a  screen  made  up  of  thousands  of  tiny  photocells, 
each  no  larger  than  the  dot  in  the  photograph  you  looked  at 
in  the  newspaper.  The  picture  to  be  transmitted  is  focused 
on  the  screen,  just  as  you  focus  a  picture  on  the  film  in  your 
camera.  As  the  picture  is  focused  on  the  screen,  the  tiny 
photocells  emit  electrons — the  number  of  electrons  each  cell 
emits  depending  on  the  brilliance  of  the  light  or  the  density  of 
the  shadow  which  is  focused  on  it.  The  more  electrons  a  cell 
emits,  the  more  positive  becomes  its  charge. 

We  might  compare  the  screen  of  cells  at  this  point  with  a 
newspaper  picture  and  say  that  these  little  cells,  with  the 
variations  in  positive  charge  that  they  have,  are  the  electric 
black  dots  and  white  spaces  of  a  newspaper  picture. 

Then  from  an  "electron  gun"  a  stream  of  electrons  scans 
the  picture,  a  row  at  a  time,  and  each  little  cell  reacts  in 
accordance  with  the  amount  of  positive  charge  it  now  has. 
The  variation  of  each  cell  is  used  to  modulate  the  carrier 
wave  which  is  transmitted  from  the  television  broadcasting 
station,  just  as  the  variations  in  electric  current  from  the 
microphone  vary  the  carrier  wave  for  a  sound  broadcast. 

At  the  receiver  another  electron  gun  flashes  back  and  forth 
across  a  screen  which  "fluoresces"  or  lights  up  in  accordance 


146  Miracles  Ahead! 

with  the  varying  number  of  electrons  which  reach  it.  When 
the  original  variations  on  the  carrier  wave  are  fed  to  the  elec- 
tron gun  in  the  receiver  mechanism,  the  number  of  electrons 
emitted  from  it  varies  "in  time"  with  the  variations  in  the 
reactions  of  the  electric  black  dots  and  white  spaces  of  the 
original  picture,  and  the  picture  is  repeated  on  the  receiver 
screen,  a  dot  at  a  time,  just  as  it  was  picked  up  from  the 
transmitter  screen. 

Why  do  we  see  a  complete  picture  and  not  a  dot  at  a  time? 
Because  the  electron  gun  scans  the  picture  so  rapidly,  going 
from  left  to  right  and  from  top  to  bottom  so  fast,  that  it  makes 
a  complete  picture  in  one-thirtieth  of  a  second! 

Most  of  us  are  familiar  with  the  principle  of  the  motion 
picture.  We  have  looked  at  a  "strip"  of  film,  seeing  picture 
after  picture  with  changes  so  slight  that  it  is  hard  to  detect 
these  changes  unless  we  look  at  quite  a  long  strip  of  film. 
"Movies,"  as  we  know,  are  possible  because  the  human  eye 
cannot  see  fast  enough  to  distinguish  the  different  pictures 
when  they  are  flashed  on  a  screen  at  a  speed  of  more  than 
sixteen  different  pictures,  or  "frames,"  a  second.  Therefore 
we  see,  not  different  pictures,  but  a  continuous  flow  of  action. 

Television,  too,  flashes  complete  pictures,  or  "frames,"  on 
the  screen  of  a  receiver  too  fast  for  us  to  distinguish  the  dif- 
ferent pictures.  It  flashes  thirty  "frames"  a  second,  although 
it  must  flash  each  frame  a  dot  at  a  time!  If  the  picture  were 
four  hundred  dots  high  and  five  hundred  dots  wide,  the  beam 
of  electrons  scanning  the  picture  would  cause  two  hundred 
thousand  variations  in  the  electric  current  in  scanning  the 
picture  once.  In  sending  moving  pictures  by  television,  to 
send  thirty  complete  frames  a  second  the  electronic  beam 
would  vary  the  current  six  million  times  a  second! 

There  we  come  to  one  great  difference  between  television 
broadcasting  and  our  everyday  sound  broadcasting.  We  do 


New  Television  and  Radio  Services  147 

our  commercial  broadcasting  on  a  "band"  of  frequencies  950 
kilocycles  wide — from  550,000  to  1,500,000.  Each  station 
transmitting  sound  programs  is  assigned  a  fixed  frequency 
somewhere  within  this  band  and  is  given  a  "side  band"  on 
each  side  of  the  fixed  frequency,  which  is  five  thousand  cycles 
wide — or  a  band  ten  thousand  wide  in  all.  Our  commercial 
sound  broadcasting  allows  room  for  ninety-five  such  bands 
each  ten  kilocycles  wide.  But  what  can  we  do  with  a  tele- 
vision "band"  from  four  million  to  six  million  cycles  wide? 
Our  whole  sound  broadcasting  range  cannot  accommodate 
one  such  station!  To  try  to  handle  television  on  our  com- 
mercial sound  frequencies  would  have  the  general  effect  of 
trying  to  drive  a  ten-ton  truck  through  a  cottage  door. 

These,  then,  are  the  problems  and  potentialities  of  the  devel- 
opment of  television  tomorrow.  The  potentialities  are  truly 
miraculous.  The  problems  are  vast;  they  are  the  problems  of 
handling  the  higher-frequency  waves.  Equipment  must  be 
engineered  to  handle  them;  coaxial  cable  must  be  provided  to 
carry  them.  But  the  production  of  today  is  solving  those  prob- 
lems for  us.  High-frequency  equipment  is  being  designed  and 
built  in  vast  quantities,  by  mass-production  methods.  That 
production  and  the  equipment  to  continue  it  will  be  ready  to 
serve  our  peacetime  needs  tomorrow.  Therefore  the  future  of 
television  is  bright. 

What  of  F.M. — frequency  modulation?  In  two  years  it  has 
had  an  astounding  growth.  Stations  broadcasting  with  fre- 
quency modulation  expanded  from  one  station  to  forty-five 
stations,  in  that  length  of  time.  F.M.  receivers — half  a  million 
of  them — are  in  use  today.  And  their  delighted  owners  know 
a  beauty  and  fidelity  of  reception,  and  a  freedom  from  static, 
that  A.M.  receivers  seldom  approximate.  Here,  too,  mass  pro- 
duction of  equipment  engineered  to  work  on  the  frequencies 
used  in  F.M.  will  be  ready  to  serve  us  tomorrow. 


148  Miracles  Ahead! 

So  the  most  conservative  engineer  will  admit  that  the  future 
of  radio  is  full  of  miracles.  Tomorrow  our  "main"  radio  will 
probably  be  a  combination  set — A.M.,  F.M.,  phonograph,  and 
television  screen.  And  mass  production  will  quickly  change  it 
from  a  luxury  of  the  few  to  a  pleasure  of  the  many. 


X 

CHEMISTRY   MAGIC 

THE  DISCOVERIES  made  in  developing  plastics  during  the  past 
three  years  have  increased  this  nation's  potential  wealth 
beyond  any  possible  calculation.  As  early  as  1940,  industry 
had  created  plastic  substances  that  were  as  thin  as  tissue,  as 
fine  as  silk,  as  elastic  as  rubber,  more  transparent  than  glass, 
lighter  than  wood  or  aluminum,  and  tough  enough  to  stop 
bullets.  Far  from  being  mere  substitutes  for  critical  materials, 
these  plastics  are  proving  as  good  or  better  than  the  materials 
they  replaced. 

Plastics — synthetic  (man-made)  materials  that  can  be 
molded  into  permanent  shapes — have  gone  to  war  in  a  big 
way.  John  M.  Wetherby  of  the  Society  of  the  Plastics  Indus- 
try pointed  out  that  prior  to  the  outbreak  of  war  the  plastics 
industry  had  concerned  itself  mainly  with  the  production  of 
such  everyday  things  as  electrical  appliances,  radios,  parts  for 
automobiles,  decorative  buttons,  and  hundreds  of  similar 
items  designed  for  eye  appeal  and  general  civilian  well-being. 

Yet  when  the  armed  forces  outlined  their  needs,  plastics 
were  quickly  put  to  work  to  replace  both  scarce  metal  and 
rubber  in  war  equipment.  Plastics  are  used  for  pistol  grips 
and  bayonet  handles.  This  material  will  stand  cold  of  40 
degrees  below  zero  without  cracking  and  heat  of  170  degrees 
above  zero  without  softening  or  blistering.  Plastic  linings  also 
are  used  in  combat  helmets,  and  for  goggles  to  protect  a  sol- 
dier's eyes  against  the  glare  of  desert  sands  or  Arctic  snows. 

"While  all  the  present  uses  of  plastics  cannot  be  detailed, 
for  obvious  reasons,"  states  Mr.  Wetherby,  "some  idea  of  the 

149 


150  Miracles  Ahead! 

part  which  they  are  playing  in  our  war  effort  may  be  gleaned 
from  the  fact  that  each  of  our  new  battleships  incorporates 
well  over  1,000  different  plastic  applications.  The  wide  use  of 
these  materials  in  our  aircraft  is  already  pretty  generally  rec- 
ognized, ranging  all  the  way  from  the  plastic  bomber  nose  of 
high  optical  and  aerodynamic  qualities  to  the  plastic  bonded 
plywood  fuselages  and  wings  used  on  glider,  trainer  and 
freight-carrying  planes.  Today  more  than  200  different  air- 
craft parts  are  being  made  from  plastics  and  more  are  under 
development." 

He  added  that  plastics  not  only  were  proving  desirable  alter- 
natives for  scarce  metals  where  great  strength  and  toughness 
is  required  but  also  were  being  used  to  advantage  in  applica- 
tions formerly  associated  with  rubber,  wood,  and  glass. 
Growing  military  demands  have  greatly  reduced  the  supply 
of  certain  plastics  for  civilian  use.  One  of  the  most  critical  of 
the  plastic  materials  is  jewel-like  methyl  methacrylate,  which 
is  probably  best  known  for  its  application  in  bomber  noses, 
navigator  domes,  and  cockpit  enclosures.  Mr.  Wetherby  said 
production  of  this  plastic  has  been  stepped  up,  but  it  is  doubt- 
ful whether  the  civilian  will  get  much  of  it  until  the  war 
is  over. 

A  lot  of  other  materials  formerly  used  by  civilians  have  dis- 
appeared faster  than  a  person  can  say  methyl  methacrylate. 
But  the  new  alloys,  plastics,  and  chemicals  that  are  giving  the 
United  States  the  world's  greatest  fighting  machine  will  make 
this  nation  a  better  place  to  live  in  when  the  Axis  has  been 
put  out  of  business. 

"Chemicals  are  essential  raw  materials,"  explains  Dr.  Emil 
Ott,  research  director  of  the  Hercules  Powder  Company. 
"Today  we  use  them  in  planes,  tanks,  ammunition,  and  to 
relieve  war  shortages.  This  war  research  is  providing  a  vast 
storehouse  of  basic  knowledge.  Tomorrow  we  will  use  what 
we  are  learning  about  these  essential  chemicals  for  civilian 


Chemistry  Magic  151 

planes,  automobiles,  houses,  food,  machines,  clothing,  cos- 
metics and  thousands  of  other  every  day  articles." 

Precious  Synthetic  Rubber 

The  dozens  of  products  now  being  made  by  our  huge  syn- 
thetic-rubber industry  should  perhaps  be  called  "soft  plastics," 
according  to  Gerald  Wendt,  science  editor  of  Time  maga- 
zine. Natural  rubber,  he  adds,  is  but  one  of  the  soft  plastics, 
as  natural  rosin  and  amber  belong  among  the  hard  plastics. 
"Whether  natural  rubber  will  occupy  a  larger  place  among 
them  than  amber  and  rosin  do  among  the  miraculous,  tailor- 
made,  hard  plastics  will  appear  within  the  next  decade,"  he 
concluded. 

In  June,  1943,  Rubber  Director  William  M.  JefTers  prom- 
ised that  synthetic-rubber  plants  would  produce  250,000  to 
275,000  tons  of  rubber  in  1943.  He  added  that  by  the  first 
quarter  of  1944  production  at  an  estimated  rate  of  850,000 
tons  a  year,  far  in  excess  of  imports  of  crude  rubber,  will  be 
reached.  The  crude-rubber  production  of  the  world  amounted 
to  a  million  tons  yearly,  but  our  chemists  will  produce  almost 
that  much  in  less  than  two  years. 

Chemists  will  get  more  rubber  from  40  acres  of  factory 

space  than  rubber  growers  could  get  from  50,000  acres  of 

plantation.  One  synthetic-rubber  plant  with  a  rated  capacity 

of  90,000  long  tons  of  rubber  a  year  will  match  the  output  of 

a  270,000  acre  plantation.  Such  a  plantation  would  have  more 

than  24,000,000  trees  and  need  at  least  90,000  workers.  It 

would  cost  about  $80,000,000  to  bring  such  a  plantation  into 

production.   The   one  synthetic-rubber  plant  used  in  this 

example  cost  $56,000,000  and  is  operated  by  only  1,250  men. 

The  general-purpose  synthetic  Buna  S  was  selected  for  the 

greater  part  of  the  nation's  synthetic-rubber  program.  "It  isn't 

rubber,"  said  H.  B.  Pushee,  chief  chemist  of  General  Tire  & 


152  Miracles  Ahead! 

Rubber  Co.,  "but  it's  the  best  substitute  we  have."  Others 
agree  that  Buna  S  is  the  synthetic  most  similar  to  natural  rub- 
ber in  processing  and  performance  characteristics.  It  may  be 
vulcanized  with  sulphur  and  rubber  accelerators  and  cured  to 
hard  rubber.  Its  resistance  to  atmospheric  deterioration  is 
slightly  higher  than  that  of  natural  rubber.  Buna  S  has  been 
found  satisfactory  for  use  in  passenger  tires,  without  the  addi- 
tion of  natural  rubber.  Although  coarser  and  rougher  than 
natural  rubber,  Buna  S  has  no  offensive  odor  (only  a  faint 
tarry  odor).  When  the  first  Buna  S  tires  hit  the  market  in 
1944  the  motorist  will  be  unable  to  tell  the  difference  between 
them  and  the  prewar  natural-rubber  tires. 

On  heavy-duty  tires  Buna  S  must  be  mixed  with  natural 
rubber  to  get  best  results.  Thirty  per  cent  of  natural  rubber 
is  used  for  heavy-duty  treads  and  carcasses  and  about  10  per 
cent  for  the  tire  tubes. 

How  Synthetic  Rubber  Is  Made 

The  word  "buna"  was  first  used  in  Germany — "bu"  stand- 
ing for  butadiene  and  "na"  coming  from  natrium,  the  classi- 
cal name  of  sodium.  The  letter  S  stands  for  styrene.  Buna  S 
is  a  copolymer  produced  by  the  polymerization  of  approxi- 
mately three  parts  of  butadiene  with  one  part  of  styrene.  Let 
us  start  at  the  beginning  and  translate  that  sentence  into  non- 
technical terms  if  possible. 

A  monomer  is  a  material  composed  of  molecules  corre- 
sponding to  the  individual  units  of  a  polymer. 

A  polymer  is  a  giant  molecule  formed  when  hundreds  of 
thousands  of  the  original  molecules  of  the  material  have  been 
linked  up  together  end  to  end  like  boxcars  in  a  train.  This 
linking  together,  or  polymerization,  gives  a  rubberlike  mate- 
rial its  bounce,  elasticity,  and  resiliency.  Natural  rubber  is  a 
polymer  of  a  single  material  called  isoprene,  but  most  syn- 


Chemistry  Magic  153 

thetic  rubbers  are  copolymers  of  two  or  more  ingredients 
mixed  in  such  proportions  as  to  give  them  rubberlike  charac- 
teristics. Thus  a  copolymer  is  a  giant  molecule  formed  when 
two  or  more  unlike  monomers  are  polymerized  together. 
Chemists  explain  that,  if  a  polymer  is  like  a  long  train  of  box- 
cars, a  copolymer  is  mixed  freight — boxcars  and  tank  cars 
alternating  in  any  proportion,  such  as  three  boxcars  and  one 
tank  car  (which  is  the  case  of  butadiene  and  styrene  in 
Buna  S). 

Buna  S  is  called  GR-S  by  officials;  the  "GR"  means  simply 
"Government  Rubber."  Here  is  how  it  is  made.  Butadiene,  a 
complex  gas  composed  of  hydrogen  and  carbon  (obtained 
from  petroleum  or  alcohol  from  molasses,  corn,  or  other 
grains),  is  mixed  with  styrene  (from  coal  tar  or  from  petro- 
leum) in  a  solution  of  soapy  water.  They  form  a  milky  liquid 
latex,  similar  to  that  of  natural  rubber.  With  heat  and  the 
addition  of  a  catalyst  (an  agent  that  speeds  a  chemical  reac- 
tion without  being  affected  itself)  the  minute  droplets  are 
stirred  until  they  change  into  solid  rubberlike  particles  of 
Buna  S  (GR-S).  The  particles  (flox  or  crumbs)  of  synthetic 
rubber  rise  to  the  surface  of  the  solution  and  are  screened 
off.  Then  they  are  washed,  the  excess  water  is  pressed  out,  and 
the  material  is  dried  and  pressed  in  seventy-five-pound  bales. 

Bless  John  Barleycorn 

There  was  considerable  controversy  in  1942  over  whether 
petroleum  or  alcohol  from  agricultural  products  was  best  for 
the  production  of  butadiene  in  the  Buna  S  program.  As  the 
program  got  under  way,  alcohol  proved  to  be  the  quickest 
way  to  get  the  synthetic  rubber  because  there  were  plenty  of 
stills,  mostly  whiskey,  ready  to  produce  it,  while  the  petro- 
leum industry  had  to  build  special  equipment.  Chemists  agree, 
however,  that  petroleum  alcohol  in  the  long  run  will  prove  to 


154  Miracles  Ahead! 

be  better  than  grain-made  alcohol  for  the  production  of 
butadiene.  Alcohol  made  in  oil  refineries  will  cost  much  less 
than  that  from  grain. 

Buna  S  is  being  produced  in  several  plants  operated  for  the 
government  by  the  United  States  Rubber  Company,  Fire- 
stone, Goodrich,  and  Goodyear.  Here  are  some  of  the  syn- 
thetic rubbers  that  have  important  places  in  our  program:1 

Buna  N  type,  copolymers  of  butadiene  and  acrylonitrile. 
They  include  the  following:  Perbunan  (Standard  Oil  Com- 
pany of  New  Jersey  and  Firestone  Tire  &  Rubber  Company) ; 
Hycar  (Hycar  Chemical  Company,  owned  by  Phillips  Petro- 
leum Company  and  B.  F.  Goodrich  Company);  Chemigum 
(Goodyear  Tire  and  Rubber  Company);  Thiokol  RD  (Thi- 
okol  Corporation,  associated  with  Dow  Chemical  Company). 

The  Buna  NTs  are  similar  to  rubber  in  being  vulcanized 
with  sulphur  and  rubber  accelerators,  and  may  be  cured  to 
hard  rubber;  but  in  some  operations  they  are  harder  to  handle 
than  natural  rubber.  They  are  used  principally  in  oil  and 
gasoline  hose,  tank  linings,  packings,  gaskets,  printers'  blan- 
kets, and  other  products  where  resistance  to  oil  is  important 
(such  as  oil-resistant  soles  and  heels). 

Neoprene,  a  polymer  of  chloroprene.  It  was  introduced  by 
the  Du  Pont  Company  in  1932  under  the  name  Duprene  and 
proved  to  be  the  first  commercially  successful  synthetic  rub- 
ber. It  is  a  good  general-purpose  rubber  with  good  resistance 
to  chemicals  and  oil  and  excellent  resistance  to  heat,  air,  and 
light — better,  in  fact,  than  any  other  rubber.  It  is  harder  to 
handle,  however,  than  natural  rubber  or  the  Bunas  in  cer- 
tain operations.  Neoprene  is  used  for  truck  and  bus  tires,  inner 
tubes,  footwear,  shoe  soles,  sheet  goods,  and  many  other  indus- 
trial and  general  purposes. 

1  On  November  9,  1943,  the  United  States  Rubber  Company  announced 
the  development  of  uskol,  the  sixth  major  type  of  synthetic  rubber  to  be 
discovered.  It  has  great  resistance  to  oils,  fuels,  solvents  and  other  penetrat- 
ing chemicals. 


Chemistry  Magic  155 

"Bathtub"  Rubber 

Butyl  rubber,  a  copolymer  of  isobutylene  and  small  amounts 
of  other  unsaturated  hydrocarbons  such  as  butadiene  or  iso- 
prene.  Flexon,  a  modification  of  this  type,  is  called  "bathtub 
butyl"  because  it  can  be  made  with  comparatively  simple 
equipment.  Butyl  is  spoken  of  as  "an  ace  in  the  hole"  in  our 
synthetic  program,  and  could  be  produced  at  low  cost  quickly 
from  abundant  materials  to  replace  natural  rubber  in  many 
applications.  Standard  Oil  of  New  Jersey  controls  the  proc- 
ess. Butyl's  general  resistance  to  deterioration  is  good,  but  its 
physical  properties  are  lower  than  those  of  natural  rubber. 
It  may  be  used  to  advantage  in  applications  where  resistance 
to  chemicals  and  oxidation  (it  is  one  of  the  few  materials 
resistant  to  the  poison  gas  lewisite)  are  more  important  fac- 
tors than  tensile  strength  and  elasticity. 

Thiokols  of  types  A,  B,  and  FA,  made  from  ethylene  di- 
chloride  and  sodium  tetrasulfide  or  from  dichloroethyl  ether 
and  sodium  tetrasulfide  or  from  modifications  and  combina- 
tions of  the  two.  They  were  developed  by  the  Thiokol  Cor- 
poration and  are  now  being  manufactured  by  the  Dow  Chem- 
ical Company  for  the  Thiokol  Corporation,  which  handles  the 
sale.  (Thiokol  RD,  a  Buna  N  synthetic  rubber,  must  not  be 
confused  with  this  group  of  Thiokols.)  The  Thiokols  have 
better  resistance  to  aromatic  hydrocarbons  (such  as  benzene, 
naphthalene,  and  toluene,  which  cause  rubber  to  swell  and 
deteriorate)  than  natural  rubber  or  other  synthetic  rubbers. 
They  do  not,  however,  have  as  high  physical  properties  as  the 
other  synthetics.  Where  resistance  to  deterioration  is  more 
important  than  resilience,  tensile  strength,  resistance  to  abra- 
sion, and  extremes  of  temperature,  as  in  certain  industrial  uses, 
the  Thiokols  have  been  successfully  substituted  for  natural 
rubber. 


1 56  Miracles  Ahead! 

Synthetic  Rubber  Is  Here  to  Stay 

Will  synthetic  rubber  drive  out  and  take  the  place  of  nat- 
ural rubber  when  we  have  won  back  the  Far  Eastern  planta- 
tions from  the  Japanese?  If  the  war  should  end  at  an  early 
date,  natural  rubber  probably  would  return  to  its  former  posi- 
tion, since  synthetic  rubber  will  not  be  sufficiently  developed 
by  that  time.  A  longer  war  might  permit  the  development  of 
synthetic  rubber  to  a  point  where  it  could  compete  success- 
fully. And  in  case  of  a  very  long  war  the  synthetic  material 
would  be  improved  to  a  point  where  it  would  be  better  and 
cheaper  than  natural  rubber. 

Chemists  say  that  Buna  S  now  costs  less  than  thirty  cents 
per  pound  and  they  expect  to  cut  this  to  ten  or  fifteen  cents 
in  a  few  years,  as  compared  with  the  ten-year  average  of 
twelve  and  four-fifths  cents  a  pound  for  natural  rubber  in  the 
New  York  market  from  1931  through  1940.  They  expect  the 
synthetic's  greater  resistance  to  acids,  oil,  sunlight,  and  other 
corrosive  agencies  to  win  it  a  big  market  regardless  of  what 
happens  to  natural-rubber  prices. 

Untapped  Resources  in  Natural  Rubber 

"What,  then,  of  the  Far  Eastern  plantations?"  asks  the  New 
York  Times.  "Will  natural  rubber  go  the  way  of  natural 
indigo?  Salvation  lies  in  research.  Though  natural  rubber  is 
modified  for  a  thousand  different  uses,  it  remains  essentially 
the  same.  Suppose  that  the  milk  of  the  tree  were  chemically 
treated  as,  for  instance,  coal  is  treated  for  the  extraction  of 
chemical  values.  New  life  would  be  breathed  into  an  industry 
on  which  millions  depend  for  a  living.  Homologues  of  rub- 
ber could  probably  be  devised  which  would  be  just  as  good 
and  cheap  as  the  synthetic  varieties.  Compounds  could  be 


Chemistry  Magic  157 

won  which  would  compete  with  those  of  the  coal-tar 
industry.  In  a  word,  the  history  of  petroleum  would  be 
repeated." 

An  Exploit  of  the  Century 

Dr.  Charles  M.  A.  Stine,  vice-president  of  E.  I.  du  Pont  de 
Nemours  and  Company,  promises  that  "the  newest  and  most 
versatile  of  plastics  will  be  available  after  this  war  on  a  scale 
beyond  all  previous  conceptions.  The  high-pressure  synthesis 
of  ammonia,  one  of  the  major  chemical  exploits  of  the  cen- 
tury," he  asserted,  "will  have  taken  on  an  industrial  status 
that,  in  terms  of  new  producing  capacity,  may  be  comparable 
to  the  discovery  of  a  sixth  continent. 

"The  amount  of  fertilizer  chemicals  that  this  new  capacity 
will  be  able  to  supply  farmers  will  be  so  large  that  the  trends 
of  agriculture  might  be  changed. 

"And  these  are,"  he  continued,  "but  one  group  of  a  hun- 
dred or  more  products  stemming  from  this  high-pressure 
synthesis,  which  utilizes  air,  coal  and  water  as  its  building 
blocks.  We  will  have  glass  that  is  unbreakable  and  glass  that 
will  float,  wood  that  won't  burn  and  laminations  of  plastics 
and  wood  that  will  compete  with  structural  metals. 

"Hosiery  derived  from  air,  water  and  coal,  a  wonder  of 
prewar  days,  is  but  the  forerunner  of  many  innovations  from 
the  same  source,  ranging  from  shoes  that  contain  no  leather 
and  window  screens  that  contain  no  wire  to  machinery  bear- 
ings that  contain  no  metal. 

"Today  we  produce  to  destroy,  but  tomorrow  we  will  pro- 
duce to  build.  Give  us  a  victorious  peace  and  the  freedom  of 
enterprise  it  should  guarantee,  and  our  progress  will  be  un- 
precedented. Let  our  swords  be  mighty  and  mighty  indeed 
will  be  our  plowshares,"  he  concluded. 


158  Miracles  Ahead! 

Fabulous  New  Wealth 

Chemistry  has  ninety-two  basic  elements  to  work  with  in 
making  the  thousands  of  useful  articles  in  the  world  today. 
Of  the  ninety-two  elements  twelve  alone  make  up  more  than 
99  per  cent  of  the  known  parts  of  the  earth — the  atmosphere, 
the  earth's  crust,  and  the  ocean.  Oxygen  and  silicon,  which 
occur  mainly  as  silica  or  silicon  dioxide  in  sand  and  quartz, 
are  by  far  the  most  widely  distributed.  They  form  together 
about  three-quarters  of  the  materials  of  the  earth's  surface. 
Aluminum  is  the  most  common  metal,  occurring  in  granite 
(feldspar)  and  in  clay.  Carbon,  which  is  the  chief  element  in 
substances  associated  with  living  things,  forms  less  than  .02 
per  cent  of  the  material  of  the  earth's  crust. 

The  Great  Compounds 

Analysis  of  certain  compounds — such  as  cellulose  (C6  H10 
O5),  the  chief  organic  compound  in  wood  pulp  and  cotton; 
ethyl  alcohol  (C2  H5  OH),  the  active  principle  in  intoxicat- 
ing liquors;  eugenol  (C10  H12  O2),  which  gives  cloves  their 
taste  and  odor;  and  vinegar,  which  is  dilute  acetic  acid  (CH3 
CO-OH) — establishes  this  important  fact:  all  are  composed 
of  just  three  elements — carbon,  hydrogen,  and  oxygen — but 
a  complicated  arrangement  of  the  atoms  of  these  elements 
into  molecules  produces  the  different  compounds  above. 

There  are  hundreds  of  such  compounds.  In  fact,  the  com- 
pounds of  carbon  total  anywhere  from  225,000  to  500,000, 
while  the  known  compounds  of  all  elements  other  than  car- 
bon amount  to  no  more  than  twenty-six  thousand.  Organic 
chemistry,  the  study  of  the  compounds  of  carbon,  touches 
every  phase  of  our  modern  civilization.  The  cell,  which  is 
the  unit  of  all  living  matter,  is  made  up  of  compounds  of  car- 
bon. Our  food,  textiles  for  clothing,  wood  for  furniture  and 


Chemistry  Magic  159 

buildings,  paper,  gasoline  for  our  automobiles,  and  thousands 
of  other  materials — such  as  dyes,  medicines,  drugs,  perfumes, 
soaps,  rubber,  and  explosives — are  all  carbon  compounds. 

The  Super-super  By-Product:  Coal  Tar 

For  many  years  man  has  sought  to  take  nature's  products — 
coal,  water,  wood,  cotton,  petroleum — apart  and  then  put 
them  together  again  to  effect  a  chemical  synthesis.  Nature  her- 
self is  tops  in  the  field  of  chemical  synthesis.  For  instance,  the 
changing  of  mulberry  leaves,  by  a  worm,  into  silk  and  the 
formation  of  sugar,  vegetable  oils,  and  cotton  fibers  from 
water,  air,  and  sunshine. 

When  bituminous  coal  is  heated  in  an  enclosed  vessel,  it 
gives  off  gases  and  leaves  coke  (used  in  steelmaking)  as  a 
residue.  Coal  tar  also  is  left  in  the  tubes  and  containers.  At 
first,  its  appearance  was  considered  a  nuisance  and  chemists 
were  put  to  work  to  get  rid  of  it.  Coal  tar  is  now  the  basis  of 
the  great  chemical  industries  of  dyes,  modern  explosives,  dis- 
infectants, synthetic  perfumes,  drugs,  and  synthetic  resins. 

The  study  of  coal-tar  derivatives  progressed  rapidly  after 
the  eighteen-year-old  William  Perkin  produced  the  first  coal- 
tar  dye,  mauve,  in  1856.  Till  then  the  dyeing  of  all  textiles  had 
been  carried  out  with  plant  juices  like  madder  or  indigo  and 
with  animal  excretions  like  the  ancient  Tyrian  purple,  pro- 
duced by  a  snail-like  Mediterranean  shellfish.  In  1868  two 
German  chemists  synthesized  alizarin  (turkey  red),  the  col- 
oring matter  of  the  madder  plant  from  anthracene,  and  soon 
ruined  France's  madder  industry.  The  synthesis  of  indigo  and 
Tyrian  purple  followed  in  later  years. 

While  work  on  the  aniline  colors  continued,  other  chem- 
ists established  the  make-up  of  the  simpler  active  constituents 
of  medicinal  herbs  and  made  similar  drugs  from  coal  tars. 
Among  them  were  salicylic  acid  for  treating  rheumatism, 


160  Miracles  Ahead! 

aspirin,  phenacetin,  and  sleep  inducers  like  sulphonal  and 
veronal.  The  antiseptic  properties  of  coal  tar  speeded  up  the 
search  for  new  antiseptics,  of  which  crude  phenol,  carbolic 
acid,  was  one  of  the  first  introduced,  to  be  followed  in  recent 
years  by  the  amazingly  effective  sulfa  drugs.  Their  use  on 
burns  at  Pearl  Harbor  against  streptococcus  infections  and 
against  pneumonia  and  other  diseases  has  already  saved  an 
incalculable  number  of  lives.  Atabrin,  vital  substitute  for 
quinine,  which  is  used  by  our  fighting  men  in  the  tropics  to 
combat  deadly  malaria,  is  another  coal-tar  derivative.  Improved 
anesthetics  also  have  been  made  from  coal-tar  chemicals. 

A  Ton  of  Coal 

Every  ton  of  coal  coked  in  a  by-product  oven  produces,  on 
an  average,  0.7  ton  of  coke,  0.06  ton  of  screenings,  10,500  to 
11,500  cubic  feet  of  gas,  12  gallons  of  tar,  26  pounds  of 
sulphate  of  ammonia,  1.75  gallons  of  benzol,  0.55  gallons  of 
toluol,  0.24  gallons  of  xylol,  and  0.5  pound  of  crude  naphtha- 
lene. These  basic  products  can  be  broken  down  into  the  con- 
stituents of  explosives,  plastics  of  many  types,  solvents,  food 
preservatives,  insecticides,  fertilizers,  lacquers,  "soapless  soaps," 
and  countless  other  things  vital  to  the  war  effort  now  and  of 
great  utility  in  the  future. 

Toluol  is  considered  to  be  the  most  important  product 
recovered  from  coal.  It  is  widely  used  during  peacetime  in 
the  manufacture  of  rubber  cement,  wood  stains,  paints,  paint 
and  varnish  remover,  as  a  substitute  for  turpentine,  and  spe- 
cial inks.  Today  most  of  the  toluol  is  being  converted  into 
TNT.  Methanol,  derived  in  part  from  coal,  is  a  necessary  raw 
material  for  the  manufacture  of  certain  explosives,  and  aniline, 
also  obtainable  from  coal,  is  needed  to  make  the  tetryl  used 
as  a  "booster"  in  high-explosive  shells. 

From  benzol  comes  phenol — which  is  used  with  air  and 


Chemistry  Magic  161 

water  to  manufacture  nylon,  having  a  higher  combined 
strength  and  elasticity  than  any  natural  fiber.  Great  quantities 
are  used  for  parachutes  and  canopy  cloth,  shroud  lines,  and 
belting  for  parachutes.  Tough,  durable  paintbrush  bristles, 
and  bristles  for  essential  industrial  and  toilet  brushes,  now 
come  from  coal,  air,  and  water  instead  of  from  the  back  of  a 
Far  Eastern  hog. 

A  large  portion  of  benzol  will  be  used  in  the  production 
of  styrene,  which  polymerizes  with  butadiene  (from  petro- 
leum) to  make  synthetic  rubber.  Coal  derivatives  also  are 
combined  with  limestone  and  salt  to  produce  neoprene,  the 
first  general-purpose  synthetic  rubber  made  in  this  country. 

Ammonia,  recovered  from  the  by-products  during  normal 
times,  is  used  largely  in  the  production  of  ammonia  sulphate 
for  use  in  ready-made  fertilizers.  Ammonia,  as  concentrated 
ammonia  liquor,  is  used  to  make  refrigerating  gas  and  in  aqua 
ammonia  for  cleaning.  It  is  employed  in  the  manufacture  of  a 
large  number  of  ammonium  salts,  such  as  ammonium  chloride 
and  ammonium  nitrate.  The  heavy  use  of  ammonium  nitrate 
for  explosives  has  sharply  curtailed  the  production  of  this  fer- 
tilizer at  present. 

Another  coal-tar  derivative,  familiar  to  us  as  moth  balls,  is 
naphthalene.  This  can  be  converted  into  beta  naphthol,  the 
base  for  many  dyes  that  are  used  for  the  dyeing  of  cloth  for 
uniforms,  the  coloring  of  paints  in  camouflage,  and  the  pro- 
duction of  synthetic  rubber. 

Oil,  the  Chemist's  Proxy  for  Coal 

All  these  substances,  and  many  others,  do  not  exist,  declares 
Lancelot  Hogben  in  Science  for  the  Citizen,1  because  coal  tar 
itself  has  unique  or  miraculous  resources.  "The  reason  why 

1  Hogben,  Lancelot,  Science  for  the  Citizen.  New  York,  Alfred  A.  Knopf, 
1938.  London,  Allen  &  Unwin,  Ltd. 


1 62  Miracles  Ahead! 

we  can  put  coal  tar  to  so  many  uses  is  that  when  we  know 
how  the  organic  molecule  is  built  up,  we  can  generally  make 
it  from  the  disintegration  products  of  any  organic  material." 

Petroleum,  like  coal,  consists  of  stores  of  dead  organic  mate- 
rial produced  millions  of  years  ago  by  the  energy  from  the 
sun.  Therefore,  by  taking  the  hydrocarbons  of  which  petro- 
leum is  composed,  and  which  are  the  building  blocks  of  all 
organic  matter,  and  rearranging  them,  the  chemist  can  create 
an  amazing  array  of  useful  materials.  At  one  time  the  oil 
refinery  produced  chiefly  lubricants,  kerosene,  gasoline, 
naphtha  waxes,  and  fuel  oil.  Today  the  refinery  is  a  chemical 
plant  that  hooks  together  giant  chains  of  hydrocarbon  mole- 
cules to  produce  "tailor-made"  high-octane  gasoline  for  com- 
bat planes,  and  also  turns  out  products  that  closely  resemble 
common  natural  substances  such  as  wood,  leather,  or  rubber. 

Toluol  until  very  recent  years  was  a  by-product  of  coal. 
Now  it  is  a  petroleum  product.  Butadiene  and  other  bases  for 
synthetic  rubber  are  being  turned  out  in  increasing  quanti- 
ties. The  Union  Carbide  and  Carbon  Corporation  led  the  way 
in  taking  refinery  gases,  which  once  were  wasted  or  reburned 
as  fuel,  and  synthesizing  many  chemicals — such  as  acetylene, 
which  is  used  as  the  base  for  neoprene  synthetic  rubber,  as 
well  as  for  welding  metals;  sulphuric  acid,  which  has  hun- 
dreds of  uses  as  an  industrial  chemical;  ethylene  dichloride  for 
vitamins,  antiknock  fluid,  plastics,  and  insecticides;  ethylene 
glycol  for  dynamite  and  antifreeze  aircraft-engine  coolant; 
acetone  for  rayon,  photo  film,  and  solvents;  and  formalde- 
hyde, chloroform,  ether,  and  many  other  chemicals  used  in 
solvents,  dyes,  plastics,  finishes,  and  lifesaving  drugs. 

The  Plastics 

Research  in  cellulose  plastics  by  the  Bell  Telephone  Labo- 
ratories reveals  many  interesting  properties  of  these  curious 


Chemistry  Magic  163 

materials.  The  molecules  in  plastics  can  be  arranged  in  such  an 
orderly  fashion  that  the  material  will  be  crystal-clear,  or  they 
can  be  in  disorder.  It  appears  that  when  the  molecules  are  in 
the  maximum  of  disorder  the  materials  tend  to  be  soft  and 
flexible.  When  the  molecules  are  arranged  in  "military  forma- 
tion" the  materials  are  hardest  and  strongest,  but  sometimes 
brittle.  For  instance,  there  are  the  disorderly  molecules  of  gum 
rubber  and  the  almost  perfectly  ordered  molecules  of  sugar 
and  ice,  which  are  brittle.  A  balance  between  these  two  ex- 
tremes gives  the  chemist  materials  of  desired  strength  and 
toughness. 

The  oldest  plastic  is  cellulose  nitrate,  first  made  by  treating 
cotton  with  nitric  acid.  With  camphor  it  made  the  inflam- 
mable celluloid  which  was  molded  into  combs,  toothbrush 
handles,  wooden  frames,  and  film.  With  alcohol  it  goes  into 
finishes  that  revolutionized  the  painting  of  automobiles  around 
twenty  years  ago. 

Another  one,  cellulose  acetate,  is  made  by  dosing  cellulose 
with  acetic  acid  and  acetic  anhydride.  Like  cellulose  nitrate, 
it  is  thermoplastic — will  soften  up  each  time  it  is  reheated  to 
a  certain  temperature.  These  plastics  are  tough,  easily  curved, 
and  more  transparent  than  glass. 

• 

The  Hard  Resilient  Plastics 

The  best-known  plastics  are  the  phenolic  resins,  including 
bakelite,  and  the  urea  formaldehydes,  which  are  much  used 
in  bonding  plywood.  The  phenolic  resins  are  made  by 
combining  phenol,  from  coal,  and  formaldehyde.  They  are 
thermosetting — when  hardened  they  stay  hard  forever  more. 
They  will  resist  solvents  and  other  chemicals,  and  are  used  in 
gears  that  will  outwear  steel. 

The  urea  resins,  also  thermosetting,  are  made  by  compound- 
ing a  nitrogen  product,  urea  (principal  organic  constituent  of 


164  Miracles  Ahead! 

human  urine),  with  formaldehyde.  Until  the  German  chem- 
ist Wohler  prepared  urea  without  the  aid  "of  man,  dog  or  kid- 
ney," it  was  believed  that  organic  compounds  could  be  made 
only  with  the  aid  of  a  mysterious  force  present  in  the  living 
plant  or  animal  organism;  thus  the  distinction  between  car- 
bon (organic)  and  mineral  (inorganic)  chemistry.  After 
Wohler  synthesized  urea  from  inorganic  sources,  the  term 
"organic  chemistry"  came  to  mean  simply  the  chemistry  of 
the  carbon  compounds. 

The  acrylate  resins  are  made  from  various  derivatives  of 
acrylic  acid,  and  are  used  not  only  in  place  of  glass  in  air- 
planes but  as  dental  material  (methyl  methacrylate  is  said  to 
be  used  in  90  per  cent  of  the  dental  plates  made  in  this  coun- 
try). Since  the  acrylate  resins,  such  as  Lucite,  have  the  odd 
property  of  making  light  go  around  corners,  they  are  used  as 
surgical  and  dental  illuminating  instruments.  Their  use  for 
a  host  of  household  articles  is  out  till  after  the  war. 

The  alkyd  resins,  which  are  made  by  putting  glycerin 
together  with  organic  acids,  go  mostly  into  paint,  lacquer,  and 
varnish  and  into  printing  inks.  The  vinyl  resins,  from  coke 
and  limestone,  are  weather-resisting  materials  of  high  quality. 
Polyvinyl  butral  was  formerly  used  as  the  plastic  interlayer 
in  safety  glass  for  automobiles,  and  now  forms  the  coating 
for  Army  raincoats,  hospital  sheeting,  drinking-water  bags, 
and  other  war  products.  It  is  replacing  tons  of  vital  rubber. 

Plastics  from  the  Ocean 

By  combining  chlorine,  obtained  from  ocean-water  brines, 
with  carbon  and  hydrogen  atoms  from  petroleum,  the  Dow 
Chemical  Company  has  produced  an  excellent  plastic  mate- 
rial known  to  chemists  as  vinylidene  chloride  and  to  you  as 
Saran.  It  makes  a  thermoplastic  pipe  of  great  toughness,  dura- 
bility, and  resistance  to  abrasion  and  corrosion.  Saran  will 


Chemistry  Magic  165 

give  good  service  to  chemical  processing  plants;  to  oil,  gas, 
and  water  companies;  and  to  innumerable  general  industries. 
Of  great  importance  is  the  fact  that  Saran  pipe  can  be  welded 
in  less  than  one  minute.  A  workman  merely  places  the  pieces 
to  be  welded  on  a  hot  plate  heated  to  350  to  400  degrees 
Fahrenheit.  When  the  ends  get  sticky  he  places  the  pieces 
together  and  allows  them  to  cool  for  ten  seconds.  After 
twenty-four  hours  the  joint  strength  is  greater  than  that  of 
the  pipe  itself!  Cheaper,  better  plumbing  should  be  available 
in  the  future  because  of  this  plastic  pipe. 

The  high-polymer  plastics  like  Saran  vary  in  physical  form 
from  clear,  hard,  transparent  glasses  like  polystyrene  to  soft, 
elastic,  film-forming  materials  and  rubberlike  products  that 
can  be  vulcanized.  Polybutene,  produced  by  Standard  Oil 
chemists  from  by-product  gases  of  oil  cracking,  is  used  in 
place  of  crepe  rubber  in  coatings  and  adhesives.  Most  of  these 
plastic  materials  lack  the  bounce  and  elasticity  of  natural  rub- 
ber or  neoprene,  but  they  are  taking  over  many  jobs  in  the 
industrial  and  military  field. 

The  Monsanto  Chemical  Company  produced  a  plastic  to 
replace  the  rubber  tires  on  industrial  hand  trucks  and  other 
wheeled  equipment.  Scientists  then  made  the  mistake  of  try- 
ing to  test  the  plastic.  They  put  it  on  steel  testing  equipment 
to  see  how  it  compared  with  rubber.  Before  the  plastic  treads 
showed  any  wear,  the  testing  equipment  gave  out. 

Replacing  Light  Metals 

Tenite,  a  plastic  made  from  cellulose  acetate  by  the  Ten- 
nessee Eastman  Corporation,  can  be  extruded  like  toothpaste 
from  a  tube,  and  then  dries  into  a  hard,  wear-resisting  mate- 
rial. It  is  replacing  light  metals  in  furniture  and  wall  trim. 
Cellophane,  also  from  cellulose,  is  used  for  containers  which 
replace  metal  cans. 


1 66  Miracles  Ahead! 

Plastic  Bearings 

Scores  of  plastics  have  set  records  for  toughness  and  ver- 
satility as  "pinch  hitters"  for  metal.  Westinghouse  has  a  lami- 
nated plastic,  Micarta,  which  is  used  for  the  bearings  of 
propeller  shafts.  A  fifty-pound  Micarta  roll  neck  on  a  giant 
rotating  roll  supports  a  million-pound  load.  One  airplane 
engine  company  saves  one  hundred  thousand  pounds  of  alu- 
minum a  month  by  substituting  phenolic-plastic  engine  parts. 
These  parts  can  be  molded  in  one  operation,  instead  of  the 
five  steps  it  took  to  make  them  from  aluminum.  A  tough 
ethyl-cellulose  plastic  is  used  in  making  dies,  jigs,  and  form- 
ing blocks  for  the  fabrication  of  plane  parts,  thereby  replacing 
scarce  metals  and  speeding  up  production.  It  should  be  inval- 
uable in  making  low-cost  fight  planes.  Three  parts  of  the  sixty- 
millimeter  trench-mortar  fuse  are  made  of  thermosetting  plas- 
tic, which  saves  a  pound  of  aluminum  for  each  projectile. 

Achieving  the  Impossible 

"If  you  don't  see  what  you  want,  ask  for  it,"  says  the  clerk 
in  the  secondhand  store. 

The  chemical  industry  has  given  this  sales  talk  a  newer  and 
better  twist:  "If  you  don't  see  what  you  want,  ask  for  it.  If 
we  don't  have  it,  we'll  make  it  for  you." 

Since  December  7,  1941,  our  armed  forces  have  been  ask- 
ing for  a  lot  of  things,  and  the  chemical  industry  has  deliv- 
ered the  goods  ahead  of  schedule. 

It  has  worked  overtime  increasing  the  production  of  high- 
octane  gasoline  for  planes;  synthetic  rubber  for  the  wheels  of 
our  mechanized  forces;  TNT  for  bombs;  chemicals  for  pro- 
tective coatings  for  military  equipment;  oils  and  fatty  acids 
for  lubrication  and  coatings;  coal-tar  derivatives,  such  as  sulfa 
drugs,  for  medicinal  purposes;  dehydrated,  compressed  foods 


Chemistry  Magic  167 

for  soldiers'  rations;  longer- wearing,  waterproof  clothing 
for  our  fighting  men;  and  literally  thousands  of  other 
items. 

Melamine  resins,  among  the  newest  plastic  material,  are 
approved  for  buttons  on  military  uniforms,  and  also  are  the 
basis  for  a  new  paper  treatment  that  gives  tremendous  strength 
to  paper  so  that  it  can  be  used  for  sandbags,  tents,  food  pack- 
aging, and  even  clothing. 

Small  wonder  that  plastics  have  in  short  order  attained  the 
dignity  of  strategic  or  essential  materials  widely  used  in  Army 
and  Navy  ordnance  and  aircraft;  in  articles  for  the  Quarter- 
master, Chemical  Warfare,  Signal,  Engineering,  and  Medical 
Corps;  in  Maritime  Commission  and  Office  of  Civilian  Defense 
articles,  as  well  as  in  many  industrial  processes. 

Winning  Chemical  Leadership  from  Germany 

We  can  be  thankful  that  our  chemical  industry  of  1941  was 
much  better  prepared  for  war  than  it  was  when  the  first 
World  War  came  along.  When  that  conflict  started  in  1914 
only  five  hundred  and  twenty-eight  workers  were  employed 
in  the  production  of  coal-tar  chemicals,  dyes,  drugs,  etc.  We 
were  importing  more  than  90  per  cent  of  our  dyes  from 
abroad,  mainly  from  Germany.  Nor  did  we  have  a  single 
plant  for  extracting  nitrogen  from  the  air  and  transforming 
it  into  the  chemicals  so  vital  in  war  (every  shot  from  a  sixteen- 
inch  gun  requires  more  than  one  hundred  pounds  of  this  gas), 
to  agriculture,  and  to  industry  in  general.  We  depended  on 
Chile  for  natural  nitrates  used  in  fertilizers  and  explosives. 
In  most  scientific  fields  we  looked  to  Europe  for  materials  and 
leadership. 

Our  chemical  industry  struggled  successfully  to  gain  inde- 
pendence from  foreign  products  during  the  first  World  War, 
and  during  the  intervening  years  of  peace  it  grew  powerful. 


1 68  Miracles  Ahead! 

American  chemists  took  from  Germany  her  leadership  in 
coal-tar  dyes  and  other  chemicals.  They  captured  nitrogen 
from  the  air  and  transformed  it  into  compounds  suitable  for 
military,  agricultural,  and  industrial  uses.  We  still  import  some 
nitrates  from  Chile,  but  we  no  longer  are  dependent  on  for- 
eign sources  of  supply  for  this  critical  material. 

Breaking  the  Japanese  Camphor  Monopoly 

For  years  we  depended  on  natural  gum  from  the  Formosan 
camphor  tree,  of  which  Japan  had  a  monopoly,  for  vital  cam- 
phor used  in  medicines,  photographic  film,  plastics,  explosives, 
and  many  other  products.  Then  our  chemists  produced  syn- 
thetic camphor  from  Southern  turpentine,  broke  the  monop- 
oly, and  gave  us  a  limitless  supply  of  camphor  at  one-eighth 
the  price  Japan  had  wanted  for  it  a  few  years  before. 

Creating  New  Wealth  in  Agriculture 

Scores  of  foods  developed  for  military  use — dehydrated, 
compressed  vegetables,  meats,  and  other  products — will  un- 
doubtedly prove  popular  after  the  war.  Chemistry  also  is  pre- 
pared to  help  the  farmer  by  using  more  of  his  products  for 
industrial  purposes.  Cellulose,  from  wood  and  cotton,  and 
furfural,  from  waste  farm  products — like  oat  hulls,  corncobs, 
and  rice  hulls — are  being  used  in  plastics.  The  Ford  Motor 
Company  uses  soybeans  to  make  textile  fibers  for  upholstery 
and  has  developed  an  all-plastic  car  body  from  soybeans  and 
other  farm  products. 

Our  neighbor  Brazil,  with  a  five-million-bag  coffee  surplus, 
is  cooperating  with  a  New  York  firm  in  the  fabrication  of 
plastics  from  cafelite,  a  brown  molding  powder  from  coffee 
beans.  Cafelite  is  something  like  bakelite  and  lends  itself  to  a 
variety  of  uses.  It  is  made  wholly  from  coffee  beans,  and  in 


Chemistry  Magic  169 

the  process  coffee  oil,  caffein,  and  several  chemical  specialties 
are  recovered. 


Synthetic  Textiles 

Rayon  and  nylon  are  the  pioneers  of  a  great  number  of 
synthetic  textiles  which  will  compete  strongly  with  natural 
fibers  in  coming  years.  Your  clothes  will  be  made  from  coal, 
air,  and  water,  and  from  peanuts,  soybeans,  tree  bark,  milk, 
and  wood  chips.  And  these  chemically  treated  clothes  will 
be  Greaseproof,  waterproof,  fireproof,  verminproof,  and  even 
stainproof.  Farewell  to  moths  and  cleaning  bills! 

Rayon,  which  now  is  synthesized  from  cellulose  in  cotton 
and  wood  pulp  and  may  soon  be  made  from  corn  or  milk- 
weed stalks,  is  the  oldest  of  the  artificial  fibers.  It  looks  and 
feels  more  like  silk  than  silk  itself,  but  can  be  fabricated  into 
tire  cord  or  parachute  shroud  lines  of  superior  strength. 
Rayon  fibers  now  are  used  in  heavy-duty  tires,  self -sealing 
gasoline  tanks,  and  many  other  war  products.  In  addition,  the 
diversion  of  the  remaining  silk  stocks  and  nylon  to  war  pur- 
poses forced  rayon  to  supply  the  requirements  of  the  hosiery 
industry.  Present  yarns  are  not  entirely  suited  for  hosiery,  but 
the  industry  expects  new  developments  to  help  it  compete 
with  nylon  and  other  fibers.  The  Celanese  Corporation  is 
bringing  out  a  new  spun  rayon  that  looks  exactly  like  high- 
quality  worsted  and  will  be  used  for  men's  suits.  Between 
them,  rayon  and  nylon  are  expected  to  put  the  silkworm  out 
of  business — at  least  as  far  as  United  States  business  is  con- 
cerned. 

Other  promising  fibers  are  vinylidene  chloride;  Velon, 
which  may  be  perfected  for  men's  suits;  and  Vinyon,  a  copol- 
ymer  of  vinyl  chloride  and  vinyl  acetate.  Vinyon's  low  heat 
resistance  has  delayed  its  use  in  ordinary  fabrics,  but  chemists 
report  that  they  are  licking  this  problem.  Palco,  a  bark  from 


ijo  Miracles  Ahead! 

the  redwood,  is  used  as  a  wool  blender  in  blankets,  heavy- 
duty  coats,  and  felt  hats.  Combinations  of  rayon  and  wool  and 
of  peanuts  and  wool  have  produced  excellent  textiles. 

Women's  coats  are  being  made  from  Aralac,  a  "wool"  that 
never  was  near  a  sheep.  Aralac  comes  from  casein,  the  protein 
in  milk,  and  is  made  by  the  National  Dairy  Products  Com- 
pany (interesting  name  for  a  textile  firm?).  The  proteins, 
which  contain  amino-acid  building  blocks,  are  being  juggled 
around  just  as  chemists  juggle  (and  rearrange)  the  hydro- 
carbon building  blocks  in  coal  and  petroleum.  Wool  is  a 
protein.  Hence,  if  the  amino  acids  in  casein  are  assembled  as 
they  are  in  wool,  the  chemist  gets  a  synthetic  wool  that  is 
warm  and  soft  and  costs  about  half  as  much  as  the  natural 
product. 

The  use  of  melamine  resins  and  other  plastics  may  give  us 
paper  shirts  and  other  articles  that  will  be  attractive  but  so 
cheap  that  we  can  throw  them  away  when  soiled. 

Postwar  Predictions 

Let  us  now  spotlight  some  of  the  developments  in  chem- 
istry, and  see  what  they  will  mean  to  you  in  postwar  years. 

Light  metals,  plastic  bonded  plywood,  plastics,  and  other 
materials  will  revolutionize  home  construction  and  give  us 
better  homes  at  lower  cost.  Probably  the  most  impressive  ad- 
vances to  be  achieved  directly  or  indirectly  by  chemical 
research  and  engineering  will  be  in  the  field  of  transportation. 
Huge  luxury  air  liners,  and  cargo  planes;  light,  low-cost  fam- 
ily planes,  and  rotary-wing  craft;  and  better  automobiles — 
all  will  be  made  possible  by  the  advances  in  metallurgy,  high- 
octane  fuels,  plastics,  and  other  fields  of  research.  The  rail- 
roads will  compete  with  other  forms  of  transportation  by 
using  aluminum,  magnesium,  and  light-alloy  steels  for  pas- 
senger and  freight  cars  which  will  weigh  far  less,  move  at 


Chemistry  Magic  171 

much  higher  speeds,  and  cost  less  to  operate  than  present 
equipment. 

Our  military  planes  now  are  using  "100  octane"  gasoline, 
and  industrial  chemists  are  working  on  fuels  of  "150  octane" 
rating.  The  use  of  liquid  hydrocarbons  (derived  from  coal, 
petroleum,  and  natural  gas),  which  are  highly  efficient  and 
can  be  pumped  long  distances  by  pipe  lines,  may  render  obso- 
lete the  present-day  industrial  power  plants. 

In  a  careful  survey  of  the  chemical  industry's  past  and 
future  prospects  the  investment  house  of  Merrill  Lynch, 
Pierce,  Fenner  and  Beane  declares: 

"If  a  true  list  of  essential  industries  is  ever  compiled,  the 
chemical  industry  will  inevitably  be  near  the  top  of  the  list. 
For  industrial  chemistry  is  not  only  as  essential  to  peace  as  it 
is  presently  in  war — it  is  vital  to  life  itself.  And  it  is  literally 
true  today  that  industry  as  a  whole  cannot  function  without 
the  chemist.  The  chemical  industry,  then,  is  the  base  from 
which  all  other  industries  stem  to  form  the  complex  structure 
that  is  our  national  economy  and  the  American  way  of  life. 
So  industrial  chemistry  is  not  just  essential;  it  is  indispensable." 


XI 

METALS   THAT   BUILD   NEW   WORLDS 

MOST  OF  us  are  incapable  of  realizing  the  extent  to  which  new 
metals  will  transform  tomorrow's  world.  We  are  in  the  habit 
of  looking  to  new  mechanical  devices  and  discoveries  for  por- 
tents of  the  future.  It  is  true  that  in  the  past  such  inventions 
have  revolutionized  everyday  living.  But  in  tomorrow's  world 
nearly  everything  we  touch,  see,  and  use  will  have  been  pro- 
foundly altered  by  the  new  light,  powerful  metals  developed 
in  recent  months  for  war  use.  These  metals  will  make  possible 
the  manufacture  of  a  thousand  aids,  comforts,  and  safety  de- 
vices we  do  not  know  today. 

A  glance  at  the  war  picture  will  reveal  why  some  of  them 
were  developed. 

A  violent  Nazi  antiaircraft  barrage  tosses  the  Flying  Fort- 
ress about  as  it  completes  its  bombing  run  over  the  target. 
Suddenly  a  waist  gunner  is  knocked  several  feet  and  slumps 
to  the  floor.  The  bomber  weathers  the  storm  of  bursting 
shells;  and  a  companion  bends  anxiously  over  the  waist  gun- 
ner, who  has  regained  consciousness  and  is  trying  to  get  up. 
Examination  shows  that  he  merely  had  been  stunned  by  a 
piece  of  flak  which  dented,  but  did  not  pierce,  a  new  steel 
jacket  he  is  wearing.  This  device  is  a  sleeveless  canvas  jacket 
with  slits  into  which  one  hundred  and  twenty  pounds  of 
tough  steel  plates  are  slipped.  It  can  be  removed  instantly  by 
pulling  a  release  cord. 

North  American  P-52  Mustangs  roar  across  France,  blazing 
away  at  Nazi  ground  defenses  and  freight  trains.  At  least 

172 


Metals  That  Build  New  Worlds  173 

75  per  cent  of  the  weight  of  these  warplanes  is  aluminum, 
light  but  strong  metal  of  many  uses.  Two  hundred  pounds 
of  lighter  magnesium — silvery- white  metal  "mined"  from  the 
ocean — also  went  into  the  engine  and  other  parts  of  these 
Mustangs. 

A  flight  of  Republic  P-47  Thunderbolts  thunders  across  a 
field,  leaps  into  the  sky,  and  soon  climbs  out  of  sight.  The 
turbosuperchargers,  which  enable  these  planes  to  fight  at  great 
altitudes,  are  made  of  special  alloys — mixtures  of  metals — 
that  can  stand  engine-exhaust  temperatures  of  1,500  degrees 
Fahrenheit,  and  cold  of  67  degrees  below  zero. 

Huge  "battle  wagons"  prowl  the  seven  seas  guarding  United 
Nations  life  lines.  One  of  these  45,000  ton  battleships  requires 
42,000  tons  of  alloy  and  carbon  steel  for  the  hull  and  machin- 
ery alone. 

"This  42,000  tons,"  explains  Admiral  S.  M.  Robinson,  "in- 
cludes ordered  steel  weights,  plus  ingot  weights  for  the  heavy 
forgings.  To  this  amount  must  be  added  an  equal  weight  of 
ingots  for  ordnance.  .  .  .  Remember  that  the  barrel  of  a  16 
inch  naval  gun  alone,  excluding  the  breech  mechanism  and 
turrets,  consumes  from  500  to  600  tons  of  steel." 

Just  a  few  examples  of  the  thousands  of  war  jobs  that  metals 
are  performing  today,  and  a  reminder  of  the  big  jobs  they 
will  perform  in  the  future.  The  lightweight  metals — aluminum 
and  magnesium — new  alloy  steels,  and  combinations  of  little- 
known  metals  will  compete  vigorously  with  one  another  and 
with  the  new  plastics.  Together,  all  of  these  materials  will 
revolutionize  living  in  the  postwar  world. 

The  Story  of  Aluminum 

Aluminum  is  the  most  common  metallic  element  in  the 
earth's  crust.  But  it  is  never  found  free  in  nature.  It  always  i$ 
found  in  combination  with  other  substances,  and  scientists 


174  Miracles  Ahead! 

spent  many  years  trying  to  produce  the  metal  at  reasonable 
cost.  In  1854  Sainte-Claire  Deville,  a  Frenchman,  announced 
that  he  had  improved  the  process  by  which  Friedrich  Wohler 
had  obtained  pure  aluminum  in  1827.  Napoleon  III  aided 
Deville's  work,  because  he  saw  a  chance  of  using  this  light 
metal  for  helmets  and  armor.  Deville  cut  the  cost  of  alumi- 
num from  five  hundred  and  forty-five  dollars  per  pound  to 
seventeen  dollars  by  1859. 

In  1886  twenty-two-year-old  Charles  Martin  Hall,  who 
had  been  graduated  from  Oberlin  College  (Ohio)  a  few 
months  earlier,  discovered  a  cheap  process  that  would  pro- 
duce large  amounts  of  the  metal.  (In  France  twenty-two- 
year-old  Paul  L.  T.  Heroult  also  discovered  this  process.) 
Hall  had  been  intrigued  by  Deville's  statement  that  every 
claybank  was  a  mine  of  aluminum,  and  by  his  professor's 
remark  that  anyone  who  produced  cheap  aluminum  would  be 
a  benefactor  to  mankind  and  also  make  a  fortune. 

Instead  of  using  clay  in  his  process,  Hall  used  pure  alumi- 
num oxide  obtained  from  bauxite  and  cryolite,  a  mineral 
found  only  in  Greenland.  (We  are  not  necessarily  dependent 
on  imports  from  Greenland,  as  cryolite  can  be  prepared  from 
fluorine,  sodium,  and  aluminum.)  Cryolite's  job  was  to  dis- 
solve the  alumina  (aluminum  oxide),  as  sugar  is  dissolved  in 
water.  Then  the  solution  was  put  in  an  iron  crucible  or  box 
lined  with  carbon.  An  electric  current  was  passed  through  the 
solution,  the  oxygen  burned  off,  and  pure  aluminum  drained 
from  a  hole  in  the  bottom. 

Hall's  process  soon  slashed  the  price  of  aluminum  to  two 
dollars  a  pound.  Today  it  is  around  fifteen  cents  a  pound. 
The  world  production  of  aluminum  jumped  from  sixteen  tons 
in  1886  to  270,000  in  1929.  In  another  ten  years  United  States 
production  alone  was  400,000,000  pounds  and  was  expected 
to  hit  2,100,000,000  pounds  in  1943.  Tremendous  amounts  of 
electricity  are  needed  to  produce  aluminum,  but  new  hydro- 


Metals  That  Build  New  Worlds  175 

electric  plants  in  the  Tennessee  Valley  and  on  the  Columbia 
River  are  helping  to  solve  this  problem. 

Most  of  the  world's  warplanes  are  made  of  an  alloy  con- 
sisting of  aluminum,  copper,  magnesium,  and  manganese,  and 
called  duralumin.  A  new  secret  aluminum  alloy  has  been  de- 
veloped for  war  use.  It  is  said  to  add  10  to  25  per  cent  to  the 
strength  of  the  metal. 

R.  L.  Duffus,  in  the  New  York  Times  Magazine,  sums 
up  past  advances  and  future  prospects  of  aluminum: 

"Cheap  and  abundant  aluminum  is  here,  cheaper  and  far 
more  abundant  aluminum  just  around  the  corner.  One  picks 
up  a  handful  of  bauxite  from  a  stockpile.  It  wouldn't  look 
well  in  the  middle  of  the  parlor  rug.  Apply  the  magic  of  mod- 
ern chemistry  and  metallurgy  to  it  and  suddenly  it  shines; 
and  in  the  glitter  one  can  see  not  only  the  flames  of  war  but 
the  glow  of  cleaner,  more  beautiful  homes,  public  buildings, 
motor  cars,  railroad  equipment — in  fact,  a  more  splendid  mate- 
rial civilization." 

Much  of  the  bauxite  comes  from  Surinam  (Dutch  Guiana), 
although  smaller  amounts  are  obtained  in  Arkansas.  Alunite, 
an  ore  found  in  Utah  and  other  Western  states,  also  is  used  in 
place  of  bauxite,  while  TVA  engineers  believe  that  abundant 
aluminum  can  be  obtained  from  a  clay  called  kaolin. 

The  Ocean  as  a  Treasure  Chest 

The  ocean  is  the  world's  greatest  storehouse  of  minerals. 
A  cubic  mile  of  ocean  weighs  about  4,500,000,000  tons  and 
contains  about  3%  per  cent  of  dissolved  salts,  weighing 
around  155,000,000  tons.  Sodium  chloride  (ordinary  table 
salt)  and  other  sodium  salts  make  up  about  117,000,000  tons 
of  this  total;  magnesium  salts,  23,000,000  tons;  calcium  salts, 
6,000,000  tons;  and  the  remainder  is  made  up  of  salts  of  other 
metals. 


176  Miracles  Ahead! 

"In  land  mines,"  explained  John  J.  O'Neill  in  the  New 
York  Herald  Tribune,  "the  desired  elements  usually  are  locked 
in  rocky  matrices  of  silica  and  other  undesired  substances. 
It  is  usually  necessary  to  grind  the  ore  to  a  powder  for  proc- 
esses in  which  the  desired  metals  are  separated. 

"When  the  ocean  is  used  as  a  source  of  minerals  it  is  neces- 
sary to  get  rid  of  a  large  quantity  of  water.  If  only  one  of 
the  ocean  salts  is  desired  the  handling  of  the  great  quantity 
of  water  usually  is  a  costly  task.  When  it  was  sought  to  get 
bromine  from  the  ocean  for  use  in  anti-knock  gasoline  the 
water  was  pumped  through  a  series  of  tanks  and  towers  on  a 
ship  and  a  gas  bubbled  through  the  water.  The  gas  combined 
with  the  bromine  and  carried  it  away  to  be  precipitated  and 
returned  to  the  extraction  tower." 

In  1934  the  Dow  Chemical  Company  began  operating  a 
plant,  on  the  coast  of  North  Carolina,  which  used  a  simpler 
process  to  get  bromine  from  the  ocean.  Dow  engineers  esti- 
mated that  a  chunk  of  ocean  one  mile  square  and  eighty-nine 
feet  deep  was  pumped  through  the  plant  in  twelve  months. 

John  J.  O'Neill  points  out  that  in  some  places  nature  has 
performed  some  of  the  work  of  extracting  the  excess  water: 

"This  takes  place  particularly  in  salt  lakes.  The  Great  Salt 
Lake  in  Utah  is  such  a  body  of  water.  The  evaporation  of 
such  lakes  in  the  past  has  produced  now-buried  deposits  of 
all  of  the  ocean  salts.  About  2,000  feet  under  Michigan  is 
buried  a  salt  lake  providing  a  vast  supply  of  brine  in  which 
magnesium  and  other  salts  are  concentrated." 

The  Dow  Chemical  Company  has  plants  which  use  brines 
from  this  Michigan  salt  lake  to  produce  bromine,  magnesium, 
and  other  products. 

In  1940  the  Dow  Chemical  Company  constructed  plants 
on  the  coast  of  Texas  to  take  magnesium  and  bromine  from 
the  ocean.  Magnesium  salts  are  obtained  from  the  water. 
These  are  treated  with  hydrochloric  acid  to  form  magnesium 


Metals  That  Build  New  Worlds  177 

chloride.  Then  an  electric  current  is  used  to  break  the  com- 
pound into  magnesium  and  chlorine.  The  light  magnesium 
floats  to  the  top  and  is  skimmed  off,  and  the  chlorine  is  uti- 
lized to  make  more  hydrochloric  acid.  Eight  hundred  tons  of 
water  are  handled  during  the  production  of  one  ton  of  mag- 
nesium. Dr.  H.  H.  Harrington,  metallurgist  in  General  Elec- 
tric Research  Laboratories,  estimated  that  the  23,000,000  tons 
of  magnesium  salts  in  a  cubic  mile  of  ocean  could  yield 
4,500,000  tons  of  magnesium — enough  to  supply  90,000,000 
pounds  of  the  metal  each  year  for  one  hundred  years.  Mag- 
nesium also  is  obtained  from  several  ores  found  in  the  West- 
ern states. 

One  Pound  of  Magnesium 

C.  L.  Mantell,  in  Sparks  from  the  Electrode,1  writes: 

"From  a  pound  of  magnesium  we  can  make  a  bar  of  the 
metal  a  half  inch  square  and  64  inches  long,  while  such  a  bar 
from  a  pound  of  aluminum  would  be  42  inches  long,  and 
from  steel  only  14  inches  long.  A  beam  of  magnesium,  light 
enough  in  itself  to  be  carried  by  one  man,  can  yet  support 
an  automobile!  A  steel  piece  of  similar  size  probably  could 
not  be  lifted  by  four  men.  The  advantage  of  magnesium  in 
the  matter  of  weight  alone,  especially  in  aviation  and  build- 
ing, makes  its  production  worth  the  effort." 

Magnesium  is  not  quite  as  strong  as  aluminum.  But  as  a 
structural  material  it  always  is  used  as  an  alloy,  usually  with 
aluminum.  These  alloys  are  called  Dowmetal,  and  are  much 
stronger  and  harder  than  magnesium  alone.  Magnesium,  which 
burns  with  an  intense  white  light,  also  is  used  in  bomb  casings, 
incendiaries,  tracer  bullets,  flares,  and  star  shells. 

Aside  from  their  uses  in  airplanes,  engineers  expect  mag- 

1  Mantell,  Charles  Letnam,  Sparks  from  the  Electrode.  New  York,  The 
Century  Company,  1933. 


178  Miracles  Ahead! 

nesium  alloys  to  be  utilized  in  postwar  automobile  engines, 
making  them  lighter  and  more  efficient.  These  alloys  also  will 
be  useful  in  home  construction,  household  appliances  and 
equipment,  and  scores  of  other  applications. 

Only  6,000,000  pounds  of  magnesium  were  produced  in 
the  United  States  in  1939,  while  at  the  end  of  1942  produc- 
tion was  at  the  rate  of  260,000,000  pounds.  It  was  stepped 
up  during  1943  to  627,500,000  pounds. 

"Tailor-Made"  Steel 

We  need  iron  in  our  blood,  and  iron  and  steel  are  the 
"lifeblood"  of  modern  industry.  With  the  exception  of  alu- 
minum, iron  is  the  most  common  metal  in  the  earth's  crust. 
It  is  found  combined  with  oxygen  in  such  ores  as  hematite 
(most  important  iron  ore  in  the  United  States),  magnetite, 
and  limonite.  Iron  is  obtained  from  the  oxide  by  heating  it 
with  carbon  and  removing  certain  impurities.  Steel  is  merely  a 
kind  of  iron  which  is  hardened  by  burning  out  the  carbon 
and  other  impurities  and  then  adding  just  the  correct  amount 
of  carbon.  Harder  steel  can  be  made  by  heating  and  then  cool- 
ing it  suddenly  by  "quenching"  in  water  or  oil.  Softer  steel 
can  be  produced  by  heating  it  and  allowing  it  to  cool 
slowly. 

Special  kinds  of  "tailor-made"  steel  can  be  produced  by 
adding  small  amounts  of  other  metals.  These  steel  alloys  make 
the  armor  plate  for  ships  and  tanks,  and  the  guns  and  other 
equipment  that  give  our  armed  forces  their  tremendous  strik- 
ing power. 

Pinkish-gray  manganese  makes  a  tough  manganese  steel 
which  is  used  in  railroad  switches,  dippers  of  power  shovels, 
rock  crushers,  and  other  equipment  that  must  stand  hard 
wear.  Manganese  also  is  vital  in  the  production  of  all  kinds 
of  steel.  Small  amounts  of  this  metal  are  added  to  steel  to 


Metals  That  Build  New  Worlds  179 

remove  sulphur  and  oxygen.  If  the  sulphur  were  not  removed 
it  would  cause  the  steel  to  become  brittle.  (Manganese  like- 
wise is  used  to  harden  aluminum.) 

Steel  as  well  as  iron  rusts  when  exposed  to  air.  So  12  to  18 
per  cent  of  chromium  is  added  to  make  a  "stainless  steel" 
which  resists  corrosion.  Chrome  steel,  containing  smaller 
amounts  of  chromium,  is  very  hard  and  elastic  and  is  valuable 
for  armor  plate  and  for  bearings. 

Nickel  steel  is  resistant  to  corrosion  and  tough  enough  for 
armor  plate,  guns,  and  bridges. 

Tungsten  steel  is  used  by  machine  tools  to  cut  and  shape 
other  metals.  A  tungsten-steel  tool  does  not  lose  its  cutting 
edge  even  when  heated  red-hot  by  long  use  at  high  speeds. 
Tungsten  sees  to  it  that  our  fighting  men  get  enough  weapons 
on  time.  The  tungsten  filament  in  Mazda  lamps  provides  much 
of  the  world  with  light. 

Molybdenum  steel  matches  tungsten  steel  in  its  resistance 
to  heat;  hence  it  can  be  used  for  cutting  tools,  and  for  axles 
and  other  equipment  where  toughness  is  demanded. 

Vanadium  steel  has  high  tensile  strength  and  elasticity, 
which  make  it  valuable  in  the  production  of  axles,  crank- 
shafts, and  gears. 

Precious  Common  Metals 

When  war  came,  we  were  faced  with  the  fact  that  the 
nation's  industry  depended  largely  upon  imports  for  five  of 
the  six  metals  listed  above.  Only  molybdenum,  85  per  cent  of 
which  is  produced  in  the  United  States,  was  abundant.  But  it 
also  got  short  because  great  amounts  were  used  to  replace 
nickel,  chromium,  and  tungsten  in  high-grade  steels. 

Seeking  to  solve  our  shortage  problems,  metallurgists  have 
yanked  a  lot  of  rabbits  out  of  hats.  Metallurgical  magic  is  pro- 
ducing N.E.,  or  national  emergency,  steels,  which  pare  down 


180  Miracles  Ahead! 

the  amounts  of  nickel,  chromium,  vanadium,  and  other  scarce 
metals  in  alloy  steels.  New  and  improved  heat  treating  and 
working  processes  have  made  the  N.E.  steels  possible,  and 
they  are  proving  to  be  equal  or  superior  to  the  high-grade 
alloy  steels  for  many  purposes. 

Copper,  the  first  metal  man  learned  to  use,  ranks  next  to 
iron  as  our  most  useful  metal.  It  is  utilized  in  all  types  of  elec- 
trical equipment.  Look  around  the  room  you  are  in  and  you 
will  probably  see  several  objects  containing  copper.  Large 
amounts  of  copper  are  used  in  alloys  such  as  brass  (copper, 
zinc),  bronze  (copper,  zinc,  tin),  and  gun  metal  (copper  and 
tin),  and  with  nickel  and  iron  to  make  Monel  metal. 

Huge  supplies  of  copper  are  produced  in  Montana,  Utah, 
and  Arizona.  But  the  production  of  tanks,  guns,  ships,  and 
planes  for  global  war  has  caused  a  critical  shortage  of  this 
metal.  Tin  is  another  valuable  metal  which  is  on  the  critical 
list  of  metals  that  must  be  conserved.  In  1941  we  imported 
60  per  cent  of  the  world's  supply  of  tin,  which  is  so  impor- 
tant in  many  alloys  and  as  a  coating  to  protect  other  metals 
from  corrosion.  And  90  per  cent  of  our  imports  came  from 
the  Far  East. 

The  emergency  has  shifted  silver  from  the  class  of  rare  and 
precious  metals  to  one  of  great  utility  in  war  industry.  Silver 
is  similar  to  copper  in  strength,  but  is  a  10  per  cent  better 
conductor  of  electricity  and  a  much  better  conductor  of 
heat.  Huge  amounts  of  silver  are  used  each  week  to  make 
bearings  that  will  stand  high  loads  and  speeds  in  war  equip- 
ment. Some  engineers  say  air  speeds  would  be  reduced  as 
much  as  seventy-five  miles  per  hour  if  silver-plated  bearings 
were  not  available. 

Gold  has  great  resistance  to  chemicals  and  could  be  em- 
ployed for  many  industrial  purposes.  Its  price,  of  around  four 
hundred  and  fifty  dollars  a  pound,  restricts  its  use  in  large 
quantities.  Some  buildings,  however,  use  pure  gold  on  their 


Metals  That  Build  New  Worlds  181 

roofs.  Its  weather-resistant  qualities  make  it  economical  in 
the  long  run. 

Lead,  not  a  rare  or  precious  metal,  is  proving  worth  its 
weight  in  gold  in  alloys  replacing  copper  for  roofing  and 
flashings.  Plentiful  silicon  (used  in  silicon  steel  for  springs  and 
electromagnets)  replaces  scarce  tin  in  bronze. 

Uncommon  Metals 

Several  other  metals,  hardly  mentioned  outside  of  text- 
books, have  been  put  to  work  by  metallurgists.  Tantalum  was 
used  in  incandescent  lamps  until  replaced  by  tungsten.  Now  it 
is  used  to  make  electronic  tubes  for  radios  and  Radar  equip- 
ment. Indium,  a  silverlike  metal  softer  than  lead,  is  finding 
wide  uses  as  a  wartime  substitute  for  tin.  Small  quantities  of 
selenium  and  tellurium  are  added  to  steel,  copper,  and  copper- 
rich  alloys  to  make  them  more  easily  sawed  and  cut.  Selenium 
and  tellurium  also  make  lead  more  resistant  to  corrosion  as 
well  as  stronger  and  tougher. 

Lithium,  the  lightest  of  the  metallic  elements,  is  used  in 
silver  solder  for  brazing  tungsten-copper  electrical  contacts. 
The  adding  of  small  amounts  of  lithium  improves  iron  and 
copper  used  for  casting.  Osmium,  the  heaviest  metal  known, 
is  employed  in  secret  war-industry  processes.  It  has  been  used 
in  peacetime  to  produce  hard  alloys  for  tipping  gold  pens. 
Molybdenum,  already  mentioned,  has  taken  over  so  many 
jobs  in  the  past  two  years  that  people  have  forgotten  that  it, 
too,  was  one  of  the  metals  so  long  "buried  in  textbooks." 

Beryllium — the  Magic  Metal 

Beryllium,  a  third  lighter  than  aluminum  and  harder  than 
steel,  deserves  special  mention  again  (we  have  already  touched 
upon  it  in  the  chapter  on  automobiles).  It  was  identified  in 


1 82  Miracles  Ahead! 

1797,  but  it  remained  a  "textbook  metal"  for  many  years. 
Finally  the  German  firm  of  Siemens  Halske  began  examining 
this  metal;  and  in  the  United  States,  Andrew  J.  Gahagan  and 
J.  Kent  Smith  went  to  work  on  it.  After  two  years'  work 
they  discovered  that  copper,  a  soft  metal,  became  harder  than 
steel  if  2  per  cent  of  beryllium  was  added  and  a  heat  treat- 
ment employed. 

Other  qualities  besides  toughness  are  making  beryllium- 
copper  useful  in  industry.  Because  they  won't  strike  sparks, 
beryllium-copper  hammers,  chisels,  wrenches,  bars,  are  used 
around  explosives  and  in  oil  refineries  and  grain  elevators. 
The  alloy's  resistance  to  rust  makes  it  valuable  for  machines 
that  must  function  perfectly  in  damp  climates. 

Another  alloy,  beryllium-nickel,  is  superior  to  beryllium- 
copper.  The  Germans  have  the  jump  on  us  in  making  this 
product,  but  our  metallurgists  are  certain  to  catch  up.  Great 
hope  is  held  for  experiments  seeking  to  combine  beryllium 
with  the  light  metals — aluminum  and  magnesium — to  produce 
the  best  of  all  structural  materials. 

"Powder  Metallurgy" 

"Powder  metallurgy"  has  been  outstanding  as  a  saver  of 
materials  and  time  in  the  production  of  metal  parts  for  war 
equipment.  In  this  process  two  or  more  powdered  metals  are 
put  in  a  mold  and  then  pressed  into  a  "briquette."  The  "bri- 
quette" is  firm  but  can  be  easily  broken  until  it  is  put  in  a 
"sintering"  furnace  and  baked.  Although  the  temperature  in 
the  furnace  is  below  the  melting  point  of  the  metals,  the  pow- 
der particles  are  in  some  mysterious  way  fastened  tightly 
together. 

American-made  tanks,  guns,  planes,  ships,  radios,  trucks, 
and  locomotives  are  using  parts  of  many  shapes  and  sizes,  and 
ranging  in  weight  from  less  than  one  ounce  to  sixty-five 


Metals  That  Build  New  Worlds  183 

pounds,  which  all  were  pressed  from  powdered  metals.  The 
parts  can  be  produced  so  that  they  are  within  a  few  thou- 
sandths of  an  inch  of  the  correct  dimensions.  Very  little  cut- 
ting, grinding,  or  chipping  is  required  to  finish  the  parts. 
This  means  a  great  saving  in  scarce  metals,  skilled  man  power, 
and  time. 

Self-lubricating  bearings  are  turned  out  by  powder  metal- 
lurgy. The  bearings  are  pressed  of  materials  that  become 
spongelike  when  baked  in  the  sintering  oven.  They  soak  up 
oil  and  then  gradually  release  it  when  in  use.  When  a  machine 
stops  running,  the  bearings  absorb  the  oil.  Self-oiling  bearings 
can  be  installed  on  tanks,  and  the  crews  never  have  to  worry 
about  lubricating  them. 

"Twenty-eight  different  metals  are  now  being  produced  in 
powdered  form  and  used  in  various  combinations  to  produce 
tens  of  thousands  of  different  products,  but  experts  say  that 
this  is  only  a  beginning,"  wrote  Robert  W.  Marks  and  Har- 
land  Manchester  in  Forbes  magazine.  "Already  it  gives  prom- 
ise of  turning  out  everything  from  watch  parts  to  locomotive 
wheels  with  new  speed  and  economy." 

Dr.  C.  K.  Leith,  head  of  the  metals  and  minerals  branch  of 
the  Office  of  Production  Research  and  Development  of  the 
WPB,  has  briefly  sketched  the  work  of  officials  in  charge  of 
getting  new  supplies  of  metals  for  war.  "No  nation,"  he  said, 
"has  enough  of  all  minerals.  We  are  developing  low  grade 
supplies  at  home  which  have  never  been  used  before.  We  are 
devising  new  processes  for  the  concentration  and  improve- 
ment of  these  low  grade  materials  and  for  their  conversion 
into  usable  form." 

In  the  past  two  years  the  United  States  Bureau  of  Mines 
has  been  conducting  a  hunt  for  war  metals  that  has  rivaled  the 
gold  rush  of  '49.  Low-grade  ores  of  zinc,  lead,  nickel,  tung- 
sten, chromium,  molybdenum,  manganese,  and  other  strategic 
metals  have  been  uncovered  by  engineers.  Then  chemists 


184  Miracles  Ahead! 

stepped  into  the  picture  and  provided  a  method  of  obtaining 
the  metals  from  the  low-grade  deposits.  It  is  called  "froth 
flotation."  A  mixture  of  water  and  pulverized  ore  is  prepared, 
and  chemicals  are  added  which  have  an  affinity  for  the  metals 
concerned.  Operating  like  deep-sea  divers,  the  chemicals  go 
down  and  lift  the  ores  out  of  the  worthless  residue  with 
which  they  are  associated  in  the  earth. 

Reporting  in  1943  to  the  American  Iron  and  Steel  Institute, 
Major  General  Levin  H.  Campbell,  Jr.,  chief  of  Army  Ord- 
nance, declared  that  metallurgical  progress  by  the  United 
States  in  two  years  has  exceeded  German  accomplishments  of 
the  past  decade  and  advanced  beyond  Japanese  developments 
of  the  last  thirty  years.  The  application  of  these  great  metal- 
lurgical gains,  he  said,  is  reflected  in  the  "superquality"  Amer- 
ican armament  furnished  the  "world's  best  flighting  man,  the 
American  soldier." 

There  is  reason  to  believe  that  these  metallurgical  gains  will 
help  make  a  better  world  for  the  American  fighting  man 
when  he  comes  home. 


XII 

WOOD,   PAPER,   AND   GLASS 
TRANSFORMED 

WHEN  MOST  OF  OUR  SUPPLY  of  metals  marched  off  to  war, 
wood,  paper,  and  glass  quickly  took  over  their  jobs  on  the 
home  front. 

Wood  saves  seventy-nine  pounds  of  steel  every  time  an 
icebox  is  made.  A  box  now  uses  six  instead  of  eighty-five 
pounds  of  steel,  and  the  remainder  of  it  is  wood.  Baby-car- 
riage bodies,  handles,  wheels,  and  springs  are  made  of  wood. 
The  Office  of  War  Information  explains  that  some  kinds  of 
wood,  expected  to  be  an  important  substitution  and  already 
used  in  many  items,  are  now  fast  becoming  critical  because 
of  a  shortage  of  man  power  in  the  lumber  industries.  Special 
kinds  of  wood  may  also  get  scarce  for  other  reasons.  These 
"other  reasons"  give  us  an  exciting  story  worth  saving  till 
later. 

Discussing  paper's  many  uses  as  a  substitute,  the  OWI 
says: 

"It  is  possible  that  the  case  of  the  alarm  clock  which  wakes 
the  war  worker,  the  hanger  from  which  he  takes  his  clothes, 
the  base  of  the  buttons  with  which  he  fastens  those  clothes, 
his  lunch  box,  the  wastebasket  into  which  he  throws  his  sand- 
wich wrappings  and  the  case  of  the  flashlight  he  uses  in  his 
work  may  all  be  made  of  paper." 

The  war  worker  may  buy  aspirin  or  tooth  powder  pack- 
aged in  paper.  The  biscuits  for  his  evening  meal  are  made 
from  baking  powder  and  shortening  which  came  in  paper 

185 


1 86  Miracles  Ahead! 

containers.  After  his  meal  he  may  ease  himself  into  a  porch 
chair  which  resembles  rattan,  but  if  it  is  a  new  one  it  may  be 
of  highly  processed  paper.  His  wife  may  be  putting  the  gar- 
bage into  a  paper  garbage  pail  and  brushing  crumbs  into  a 
paper  dustpan.  Later  they  may  retire  under  the  light  but 
warm  protection  of  a  blanket  made  of  quilted  layers  of  paper. 
The  OWI  adds  that  this  blanket,  which  was  originated  for 
use  in  case  of  air-raid  casualties,  has  been  adopted  by  some 
thrifty  households  for  summer  use.  Its  low  cost  means  it  can 
be  discarded  at  the  end  of  the  season  with  no  thought  of 
packing  in  moth  balls. 

There  are,  however,  more  than  fifteen  thousand  different 
kinds  of  paper  and  paper  products  in  use  today,  and  paper 
magicians  are  making  it  perform  new  feats  of  strength  every 
day. 

Alarm  clocks,  flashlight  cases,  and  many  other  products 
replacing  metal  on  the  home  front  are  made  from  waste  paper 
that  is  ground  up  and  molded  by  great  heat  and  pressure. 
Tough  fiber  containers,  which  take  the  place  of  tin  cans  for 
packing  many  products,  are  made  of  paperboard.  Then  there 
is  the  very  unpaperlike  "plasticized  paper"  now  used  by  air- 
plane companies. 

A  new  method  which  turns  coarse  paper  into  a  strikingly 
waterproof  material  was  announced  in  mid- 1943  by  Dr.  Wil- 
liam D.  Coolidge,  research  director  of  the  General  Electric 
Laboratories.  The  materials  to  be  waterproofed — paper,  as 
well  as  cloth  and  ceramic  insulations  for  radio  equipment — 
are  put  in  a  cabinet  and  exposed  to  chemical  vapors.  The 
treatment  leaves  no  mark  upon  the  materials,  but  it  does  cover 
them  with  a  thin  film  which  successfully  repels  water  and 
can  stand  temperatures  of  as  high  as  550  degrees  for  a  short 
time. 

Another  process  for  "water-conditioned"  (aqualized)  pa- 


Wood,  Paper,  and  Glass  Transformed          187 

per  does  not  depend  upon  a  protective  coating.  The  paper  is 
treated  with  a  secret  chemical  compound  which  binds  the 
fibers  together  so  that  water  cannot  get  between  them  and 
float  them  apart.  The  fibers  in  aqualized  paper  are  "welded" 
together  so  firmly  that  a  towel  of  this  material  can  be  soaked 
with  water  and  rubbed  vigorously  and  still  remain  whole. 
Even  after  being  in  water  many  minutes  the  aqualized  paper 
will  support  twenty-six  pounds.  At  the  same  time  the  paper 
absorbs  water  quickly;  it  does  not  shed  it  like  a  duck's  back. 
Potato  sacks,  linings  for  vegetable  crates,  meat  wrappings, 
and  similar  materials  for  industry  are  made  of  special  types  of 
aqualized  paper.  Draperies  for  the  home,  and  sheets  and  pil- 
lowcases for  hospitals,  are  being  produced.  This  versatile 
paper  can  be  waterproofed  to  serve  for  clothing,  tents,  and 
sandbags  and,  unlike  other  waterproofed  papers,  it  will  not 
weaken  if  the  protective  coating  is  cracked  or  broken. 

A  new  "plasticized  paper"  is  made  by  treating  paper  with 
gluelike  resin  and  subjecting  it  to  pressure.  This  produces  an 
amber  sheet  of  plastic  paper  half  as  heavy  as  aluminum  and 
almost  as  tough  as  steel  of  similar  thickness.  British  and 
American  aircraft  companies  are  using  this  material  on  the 
wings  of  airplanes.  Paper  containers  now  can  hold  oil,  grease, 
and  other  liquids,  and  a  soaking  in  the  ocean  or  a  fall  on  con- 
crete makes  no  impression  on  them. 

The  list  of  the  new  uses  to  which  paper  is  being  put  gets 
longer  every  day.  Obviously,  a  material  that  is  light  as  well  as 
strong  will  find  many  new  jobs  to  do  in  the  postwar  world. 
Dr.  Harvey  N.  Davis,  president  of  Stevens  Institute  of  Tech- 
nology, envisions  all-paper  houses  and  even  bicycles  con- 
structed entirely  of  paper.  We  may  shy  away  from  using 
paper  as  a  structural  material,  but  this  paper  won't  look  like 
paper,  won't  act  like  paper,  and  will  soon  make  us  forget  that 
it  ever  was  paper. 


1 88  Miracles  Ahead! 

Nazi  Germany's  Reliance  on  Wood 

This  nation  has,  until  recently,  lagged  behind  the  Nazis  in 
getting  full  value  from  wood.  They  call  it  "UniversalrohstofF ' 
— the  universal  material — and  have  shown  that  it  is  a  source 
of  chemical  raw  materials  which  may  outstrip  coal,  oil,  and 
mineral  resources  for  many  uses  in  the  future.  Wood  can  be 
used  to  produce  food,  clothing,  alcohol,  plastics,  rubber,  and 
numerous  other  products. 

How  Hitler  used  wood  in  his  plans  for  the  conquest  of  the 
world  is  brilliantly  told  in  Dr.  Egon  Glesinger's  Nazism  in 
the  Woodpile*  He  reveals  that  when  Hitler,  in  1928,  un- 
earthed the  fact  that  it  was  lack  of  essential  raw  materials 
which  had  been  the  fundamental  reason  for  Germany's  defeat 
in  1918  he  became  morose  and  sullen.  Hitler  realized  that  his 
dream  of  world  conquest  would  get  nowhere  so  long  as  Brit- 
ain and  America  kept  exclusive  control  of  the  raw  materials 
needed  by  Germany. 

"It  was  then,"  writes  Dr.  Glesinger,  "that  Hermann  Goer- 
ing  came  forward  with  a  new  idea:  'Obviously  the  easiest 
way  to  break  the  Anglo-American  grip  is  to  discover  and  de- 
velop another  basic  raw  material  and  to  secure  world-wide 
control  in  that  field.  After  long  deliberation  my  advisers  and 
I  have  reached  the  conclusion  that  'wood  could  become  the 
raw  material  for  world  domination.' " 

An  unknown  student  of  forestry,  Johann  Albrecht  von 
Monroy,  was  then  introduced  to  Hitler  and  proceeded  to 
argue  that  the  forests  could  be  made  to  yield  all  the  essentials 
which  Germany  needed.  Later  Goering  pointed  out  the  two 
reasons  why  wood  should  be  chosen  to  become  the  "raw 
material  for  Hitler's  Thousand- Year  Reich": 

i.   Wood  is  one  of  the  five  leading  commodities  in  world 

1  Glesinger,  Egon,  Nazism  in  the  Woodpile.  Indianapolis,  Bobbs-Merrill 
Company,  1942. 


Woody  Paper,  and  Glass  Transformed          189 

trade,  and  ranks  second  only  to  milk  in  production  value  as  a 
raw  material  and  foodstuff. 

2.  One-third  of  Germany's  soil  is  forested,  as  is  the  soil  of 
Germany's  neighbors,  especially  Russia,  while  England  must 
import  her  wood. 

The  Monroy-Goering  proposals  were  carried  out,  and  Dr. 
Glesinger  writes  that  "it  is  Hitler's  belief  in  wood  which  gives 
him  the  confidence  that  he  and  his  system  will  survive  the 
war;  that  no  Allied  blockade  can  wear  down  the  Reich." 

Professor  Bergius,  leading  Nazi  scientist,  who  won  the 
Nobel  Prize  for  discovering  the  hydrogenation  of  coal  (to 
produce  gasoline),  made  this  important  comment  on  the  value 
of  wood  as  a  raw  material  and  foodstuff,  according  to  Dr. 
Glesinger: 

"How  many  people  know  that  an  acre  of  good  forest  land 
will  produce  more  sugar  than  an  acre  of  sugar  beets?  Who 
in  America  is  aware  of  the  fact  that  an  acre  of  their  Georgia 
land  will  yield  five  times  as  much  cellulose  if  planted  with 
yellow  pine  as  it  will  if  planted  with  cotton? 

"Prepared  with  true  German  thoroughness,  the  wood 
utilization  plans  are  founded,"  wrote  Dr.  Glesinger,  "on  a 
completely  new  classification  of  the  uses  of  wood  as  a  raw 
material.  The  five  main  categories  are: 

"a.  Solid  and  liquid  fuels  [wood  gas  for  civilian  vehicles, 
and  alcohol  for  the  production  of  gasoline  and  synthetic 
rubber  for  war  equipment]. 

"b.   Food  and  fodder  [sugar,  proteins,  and  cattle  feed]. 

"c.    Cellulose  and  textile  fibers  [artificial  wool  and  rayon], 

"d.  Structural  material  in  various  fields  of  technical  appli- 
cation [transportable  wooden  huts  for  troops,  wallboard  and 
fiberboard,  and  'wooden  iron' — a  type  of  plastic-bonded 
plywood  for  airplane  parts]. 

"e.  Wood  by-products  as  basic  materials  for  chemical  in- 
dustries." [Among  them  is  lignin,  a  gluelike  substance  that 


190  Miracles  Ahead! 

binds  cellulose  fibers  together  and  is  expected  to  become  more 
important  than  coal  tar  as  a  chemical  raw  material.] 

American  Advances  in  Wood  Chemistry 

American  wood  chemists  started  late  in  this  race  to  utilize 
wood  as  a  basic  raw  material  and  foodstuff.  But  already  they 
have  topped  the  Nazis  in  certain  fields.  A  process  developed 
by  Dr.  Donald  F.  Othmer  and  his  associates  at  Brooklyn 
(New  York)  Polytechnic  Institute  can  produce  raw  sugar 
from  sawdust  in  minutes,  while  the  Nazi  process  takes  several 
hours.  Industrial  alcohol,  protein  yeast,  glycerin,  and  other 
valuable  products  can  be  produced  from  the  raw  sugar.  The 
next  step  will  be  the  production  of  synthetic  fibers,  lubricat- 
ing oil,  plastics,  vanillin  for  synthetic  vanilla  flavoring,  etc. 

Our  plastic-bonded  plywood  and  other  structural  materials 
from  wood  are  as  good,  if  not  better,  than  the  Nazis'  "wooden 
iron."  These  materials  are  expected  to  compete  strongly  with 
the  light  metals  and  stainless  steel  in  the  construction  of  auto- 
mobiles, airplanes,  and  prefabricated  homes  in  the  postwar 
period. 

Warm  Clothes  from  the  Bark  of  Trees 

Chemists  now  are  busy  trying  to  get  full  value  from  the 
bark  of  trees.  Roofing  felts  and  boards  can  be  made  of  it,  and 
the  United  States  Department  of  Agriculture's  Regional  Re- 
search Laboratories  have  found  what  they  believe  is  an  excel- 
lent source  of  tanning  material  in  the  bark  of  the  Western 
hemlock  tree.  This  work  is  important  because  we  have  im- 
ported about  half  of  the  material  needed  in  tanning  leather 
produced  in  this  country,  and  supplies  have  been  cut  sharply 
by  the  war.  The  bark  of  the  giant  redwood  also  has  been 
used  to  make  a  fabric  for  women's  hats  and  suits,  mattresses, 


Wood,  Paper,  and  Glass  Transformed          191 

and  heavy  coats.  The  bark  is  shredded  and  mixed  with  re- 
claimed or  pure  wool. 

The  "Teco"  ring,  whose  name  comes  from  the  Timber 
Engineering  Company,  is  favored  to  bring  a  revival  of  timber 
as  a  structural  material.  A  bolt  alone  will  not  serve  to  hold 
two  heavy  timbers  together.  This  is  where  the  Teco  ring 
comes  in.  This  metal  ring  is  sunk  into  both  pieces  of  timber 
and  a  bolt  then  is  put  through  the  center.  The  ring  distributes 
the  stresses  in  the  connection  over  a  wider  area,  and  all  the 
bolt  has  to  do  is  hold  the  timbers  together.  Companies  using 
the  Teco  ring  have  set  several  records  on  construction  jobs 
for  the  Army  and  Navy. 

The  use  of  the  Teco  ring  greatly  strengthens  wood  joints 
and  permits  wood  to  be  utilized  in  building  huge  warehouses, 
bridges,  and  airplane  hangars  that  otherwise  would  require 
steel.  Teco  is  expected  to  help  wood  recapture  some  of  the 
construction  market  it  has  lost  to  steel. 

Neiv  Treatments  for  Neiu  Tensile  Strengths 

Plywood,  narrow  strips  of  veneer  glued  together  with  syn- 
thetic resins  which  are  waterproof  and  fungusproof,  and  heat- 
and  cold-resistant,  will  play  an  important  part  in  postwar 
homes.  These  "wood-and-glue  sandwiches"  are  stronger  than 
solid  steel  per  unit  of  weight.  The  Gunnison  Housing  Cor- 
poration uses  a  plywood  and  plastic  panel  that  will  take  about 
any  kind  of  punishment  that  nature  or  man  can  deal  out. 
Flood  waters,  blows  from  metal  objects,  and  boiling  water 
make  no  impression  on  these  panels. 

Plastic-bonded  plywood  and  impregnated  and  compreg- 
nated  woods  are  water-,  fire-,  oil-,  and  weather-resistant.  They 
are  stronger  pound  for  pound  than  aluminum  or  steel.  Wood 
and  wood  plastics  are  used  for  United  States  gliders,  training 
planes,  and  cargo  transports.  Britain's  famed  Mosquito  bomber 


192  Miracles  Ahead! 

is  largely  of  wood.  (Here  are  the  other  reasons  "why  certain 
woods  may  get  scarce.") 

Germany's  continued  progress  in  wood  chemistry  was 
made  possible  by  conservation  and  reforestation  programs 
which  gave  her  renewable  sources  of  supply,  and  our  forest- 
products  industries  also  are  working  to  insure  a  steady  supply 
of  wood  in  the  United  States. 


Forest  Conservation 

"By  scientific  cutting,"  wrote  Robert  M.  Hallett  in  the 
Christian  Science  Monitor,  "it  is  possible  to  increase  the  an- 
nual new  growth  to  a  point  where  the  yearly  increment  ap- 
proximately balances  the  normal  amount  of  timber  used. 
Industry  spokesmen  stress  that  timber  is  a  crop — like  corn  or 
wheat — and  can  be  harvested  and  renewed.  Actually  trees 
need  to  be  cut  to  insure  a  future  abundant  supply  of  this 
natural  resource,  because  trees  grow  old  and  rot  if  they  are 
not  harvested  to  make  way  for  a  new  crop.  Wood  researchers 
hold  that  continuation  of  their  work  promises  increasing  divi- 
dends in  productive  land  use,  waste  utilization  and  employ- 
ment. 

"The  world  has  not  grown  out  of  the  'wood  age';  it  is  only 
now  entering  it,"  concludes  Hallett. 

Glass  Miracles 

The  third  member  of  this  wonder-working  trio  is  glass. 
Dr.  W.  C.  Taylor,  chief  of  glass  technology  of  the  Corning 
Glass  Works,  Corning,  New  York,  states  in  the  American 
Glass  Review  that  "the  world  would  be  left  in  chaos  if  glass 
were  removed — transportation  and  communication  would  be 
stopped,  hospitals  and  laboratories  would  be  at  a  loss,  and 
there  would  be  a  real  blackout." 


Woody  Paper,  and  Glass  Transformed          193 

Dr.  Taylor  reminded  us  that  "the  seeds  of  glass  technology 
were  sown  100  years  ago,  but  were  not  developed  until  the 
turn  of  the  century.  In  its  first  use  glass  was  an  ornament," 
he  added.  "Later  it  took  on  more  utilitarian  characteristics 
and  was  made  into  window  panes  and  bottles  and  applied  to 
optical  use." 

We  can  see  through  a  clear  pane  of  glass,  but  we  cannot 
see  it  clearly  enough  to  describe  it  accurately.  We  cannot  see 
its  molecular  structure  even  with  the  best  microscope  or  X 
ray.  But  we  have,  according  to  Dr.  Taylor,  been  able  to  lay 
the  foundation  of  modern  glass  by  working  out  the  relation 
of  the  physical  properties  of  glass  to  its  chemical  composition. 
Eighty  of  the  ninety-two  elements,  he  added,  can  be  used  in 
the  manufacture  of  glass,  making  possible  a  tremendous  num- 
ber of  combinations.  Glass  research  to  date,  he  said,  only  has 
scratched  the  surface  of  these. 

New  Techniques  in  Glassmaking 

In  making  glass  the  basic  ingredients — silica  (or  sand), 
limestone,  and  soda  ash — are  carefully  weighed  out.  Two 
other  substances  generally  are  included  in  the  mixture.  They 
are  sodium  sulphate,  which  refines  the  glass,  and  cullet  (scrap 
glass  left  over  from  a  previous  batch,  which  aids  the  melting) . 

The  ingredients  are  put  in  huge  clay  pots  and  "baked"  in 
a  high-temperature  furnace.  Then  the  molten  glass  is  taken  to 
rollers,  which  flatten  it  out.  When  the  glass  is  the  proper 
thickness  it  is  moved  along  rollers  through  a  tunnel — the 
annealing  room — where  it  is  slowly  cooled.  The  rough  glass 
then  comes  out  and  is  ready  for  grinding  and  polishing  opera- 
tions, washing  and  drying,  and  final  inspection  before  it  is 
shipped. 

Just  as  in  the  making  of  special  alloy  steels,  glass  manufac- 
turers can  produce  many  types  of  glass  by  varying  the  num- 


194  Miracles  Ahead! 

her  and  quantity  of  materials  that  go  into  each  mixture,  or 
batch.  Different  chemicals  and  minerals  are  added  to  give  the 
glass  certain  properties.  And  these  "alloy  glasses"  are  as  supe- 
rior to  ordinary  glass  as  alloy  steels  are  to  ordinary  cast  iron. 

Since  Corning  brought  out  its  Pyrex  glass  in  1915,  tre- 
mendous strides  have  been  made  in  the  manufacture  of  flame- 
proof glass.  Ordinary  glass  has  a  high  "coefficient  of  expan- 
sion"— that  is,  it  varies  sharply  with  changes  in  temperature 
— and  it  is  a  poor  conductor  of  heat.  Thus  a  thick  piece  of 
ordinary  glass  will  crack  when  heated,  because  the  outside 
expands  more  than  the  inside.  The  low  "coefficient  of  expan- 
sion" of  Pyrex  prevents  it  from  cracking  when  exposed  to  a 
flame. 

Coming's  latest  Pyrex-type  glass  is  said  to  be  "so  new  that 
industry  hasn't  yet  caught  up  with  it."  The  discovery  of  this 
glass — called  Vycor — has  been  rated  one  of  the  outstanding 
scientific  achievements  of  the  century.  Vycor  glass  is  96  per 
cent  silica — thereby  approaching  the  characteristics  of  quartz, 
which  is  pure  silicon  dioxide  with  a  very  low  coefficient  of 
expansion  and  with  high  resistance  to  chemicals.  Vycor  is 
made  by  giving  the  glass  a  chemical  treatment  which  removes 
one-third  of  the  mass.  Little  but  silica  remains  and  it  is  in  a 
porous  state.  This  is  reheated  and  the  glass  "shrinks"  until  all 
the  minute  holes  are  closed  and  a  transparent,  nonporous  glass 
is  produced.  According  to  Dr.  W.  W.  Shaver,  head  of  the 
production-development  department  of  Corning,  this  96  per 
cent  silica  glass  has  the  property  of  used  sand.  To  answer  any 
questions  about  Vycor's  toughness,  Dr.  Shaver  heated  a  cup 
of  this  glass  red-hot  and  then  plunged  it  against  a  cake  of  ice. 
The  glass  was  not  damaged. 

Another  glass  which  is  similar  to  Vycor  has  been  made  by 
the  Pittsburgh  Plate  Glass  Company  and  other  glass  manufac- 
turers. A  quick-cooling  process  balances  the  forces  of  expan- 
sion and  contraction  in  the  glass,  making  it  more  than  four 


y  Paper,  and  Glass  Transformed          195 

times  as  strong  as  ordinary  plate  glass.  A  pane  of  this  glass, 
resting  on  a  cake  of  ice,  will  withstand  a  stream  of  molten 
lead.  A  two-pound  ball  can  drop  six  feet  on  this  glass  and  not 
even  scratch  it.  This  glass,  and  Vycor,  will  have  many  post- 
war uses  for  windows  in  oven  doors,  tops  of  frozen-food  cabi- 
nets, strong  tabletops,  locomotive  headlights,  and  revolving 
doors.  And  it  is  quite  possible  that  your  postwar  home  will 
have  entire  walls  of  this  transparent  insulating  glass  that  keeps 
heat  in  during  winter  and  excludes  it  in  summer. 

There  are  several  types  of  glass  that  you  won't  be  able  to 
recognize  as  such.  First  we  have  "Foamglas,"  which  was  de- 
veloped by  Corning  and  Pittsburgh  Plate  Glass.  This  mate- 
rial, which  insists  on  being  called  glass,  can  be  sawed  and 
drilled  and  will  float  like  cork.  The  glass  is  made  by  adding 
pure  carbon  to  the  batch.  When  it  is  heated  the  carbon  com- 
bines to  form  a  gas,  which  puffs  up  the  molten  glass  into  a 
mass  of  bubbles.  This  foamy  glass  is  annealed  to  prevent  later 
cracking,  and  then  is  cut  into  slabs.  A  cubic  foot  of  Foamglas 
has  more  than  five  million  bubbles,  or  air  cells,  and  weighs 
only  ten  to  eleven  pounds,  while  ordinary  glass  weighs  one 
hundred  and  fifty  to  one  hundred  and  seventy-five  pounds 
per  cubic  foot. 

The  air  cells  in  Foamglas  make  it  almost  as  buoyant  as  cork 
or  balsa  wood  and  it  is  well  suited  for  lifesavers,  life  rafts,  and 
pontoon-bridge  floats.  At  the  same  time  Foamglas  is  strong 
enough  to  build  walls  or  ceilings  without  special  support.  It 
won't  rot  or  burn  and  is  verminproof.  Any  termite  foolish 
enough  to  tackle  Foamglas  will  get  a  broken  jaw  for  its 
trouble. 

Foamglas  is  good  news  for  the  food  and  storage  industries. 
Tt  will  insulate  cold-storage  plants,  ice-cream  factories  and 
dairies,  and  also  can  be  used  in  ovens  and  furnaces. 

Next  in  line  comes  Fiberglas,  which  is  used  for  insulation 
and  to  make  attractive,  flameproof  draperies.  In  addition, 


196  Miracles  Ahead! 

Owens-Corning-Fiberglas  has  developed  a  glass  thread  for 
surgical  sutures.  This  suture  is  stronger  than  silk  and  avoids 
the  danger  of  infections  sometimes  caused  by  catgut  and  by 
silk.  Then,  too,  there  is  a  fibrous  glass  tape  used  to  strain  for- 
eign matter  from  blood  plasma. 

Optical  glass  has  given  us  "eyes"  to  see  stars  billions  of 
miles  away,  and  the  minute  germs  and  other  organisms  all 
about  us.  The  full  story  of  the  manufacture  of  optical  glass 
for  military  purposes  cannot  be  told  now.  Bausch  &  Lomb 
and  the  other  optical  manufacturers  have  blasted  the  myth  of 
German  superiority  in  precision  optical  instruments.  The 
efficiency  of  American  range  finders,  detection  devices,  and 
aerial  cameras  has  been  greatly  increased.  Furthermore,  in- 
struments that  once  were  produced  by  hand  now  are  turned 
out  by  mass-production  methods  to  tolerances  as  fine  as  a 
ten-thousandth  of  an  inch. 

Many  newcomers  have  been  producing  optical  instruments 
for  the  Army  and  Navy.  Among  them  aic  Westinghouse, 
Mergenthaler  Linotype,  Nash-Kelvinator,  and  Minneapolis- 
Honeywell. 

"One  of  the  examples  in  American  development  cited  by 
Minneapolis  engineers,"  said  the  New  York  World-Telegram, 
"is  the  control  of  humidity.  One  bottleneck  in  the  production 
of  fine  optical  ware  was  the  effect  of  humidity  on  glass, 
which  on  inclement  days  sometimes  halted  production  com- 
pletely. .  .  . 

"An  engineering  study  was  made  of  water  and  glass,  and 
it  was  discovered  that  glass  is  hydroscopic,  meaning  it  ab- 
sorbed moisture  and  exuded  it,  depending  on  the  humidity. 
When  humidity  fell  the  water  oozed  out  and  deposited  par- 
ticles of  soluble  salts  which  made  the  glass  sticky.  Rising 
humidity  kept  the  water  in  the  glass.  After  that  the  solution 
was  simple.  The  company  controlled  the  humidity  to  permit 
uninterrupted  production." 


Wood,  Paper,  and  Glass  Transformed          197 

In  the  future,  people  can  live  in  glass  houses  and  not  worry 
about  the  result  of  throwing  stones.  John  D.  Biggers,  presi- 
dent of  the  Libbey-Owens-Ford  Glass  Company,  declares 
that  "houses  with  entire  walls  of  transparent,  insulating  plate 
glass  that  keeps  heat  in  during  winter  and  excludes  it  in  sum- 
mer will  take  their  place  in  the  world  of  tomorrow." 

Blankets  of  fiber  glass  have  been  used  to  insulate  Army  bar- 
racks and  Navy  ships.  Boards  composed  of  compressed  glass 
fibers,  and  faced  on  one  side  with  a  glass-fiber  cloth  that  can 
be  painted,  are  used  on  Navy  fighting  ships  for  both  heat 
insulation  and  interior  finish.  The  board  has  replaced  millions 
of  pounds  of  aluminum  formerly  required  and  in  a  period  of 
seven  months  saved  enough  aluminum  to  build  more  than 
two  hundred  four-motored  bombers. 

List  the  glass  items  that  can  replace  metal  ones  in  kitchens 
and  you  have  named  almost  everything  in  the  kitchen.  Flame- 
proof glass  saucepans,  skillets,  and  double  boilers  replace 
missing  aluminum  and  scarce  iron  and  enamel  kitchenware. 
More  and  more  foods  are  packed  in  glass  containers  rather 
than  tin  cans,  saving  three  hundred  thousand  tons  of  steel  and 
tin  for  war  equipment.  Glass  also  makes  knife  sharpeners, 
stoppers,  traps  for  kitchen  sinks,  tabletops,  bathroom  acces- 
sories, and  washboards. 

Consider  this  incomplete  list  of  the  types  of  glass  now  per- 
forming so  brilliantly  on  the  home  and  war  fronts: 

Glass  so  hard  it  will  stop  a  fifty-caliber  bullet;  glass  that 
can  be  sawed,  drilled,  and  worked  with  carpenter's  tools;  glass 
so  light  that  it  floats  in  water;  glass  wool  so  fine  that  a  marble- 
sized  ball  of  glass  will  spin  twenty  miles  of  thread;  explosion- 
proof  glass  globes  for  use  in  war  plants;  glass  that  can  be 
heated  red-hot  and  plunged  into  cold  water  without  damage; 
glass  tubing  that  replaces  copper,  lead,  and  steel  in  plumbing; 
glass  that  can  be  bent  and  tempered  to  almost  any  shape;  glass 
springs  that  don't  get  "tired"  and  are  equal  to  steel  ones; 


198  Miracles  Ahead! 

automobile  batteries  of  glass;  secret  optical  glass  which, 
among  other  things,  enables  military  observers  to  look  directly 
at  the  sun  when  spotting  enemy  bombers. 

Glass  will  join  wood  and  paper  in  performing  hundreds  of 
jobs  for  us  in  the  postwar  years.  The  "Three  Musketeers" 
are  performing  feats  of  strength  and  endurance  today,  and 
will  go  on  to  new  triumphs  tomorrow. 


XIII 
FORTUNES  IN  AGRICULTURE 

PROBLEMS  AS  WELL  AS  CROPS  always  have  been  harvested  by 
American  farmers.  For  years  they  sought  to  expand  produc- 
tion to  feed  more  people.  In  1800  one  farmer  could  supply 
food  for  less  than  six  persons.  A  little  over  one  hundred  years 
later  one  farmer  could  feed  eighteen  persons.  Then  in  the 
1930*8  the  problem  of  surpluses  plagued  farmers,  and  produc- 
tion was  curtailed  in  order  to  raise  prices. 

Today  farmers  and  the  government  face  the  tough  problem 
of  increasing  the  production  of  many  foods  needed  by  our 
fighting  men,  civilian  workers,  and  allies.  In  1942  farm  out- 
put hit  an  all-time  high.  What  will  happen  to  this  tremendous 
productive  capacity  after  the  war?  Will  the  problem  of  sur- 
pluses again  plague  the  farmer? 

Since  1935  the  National  Farm  Chemurgic  Council  has 
spread  the  word  that  the  "farm  problem"  can  be  solved  in 
part  by  finding  nonfood  uses  for  crops  through  chemurgy — 
"chemistry  at  work  for  the  farmer."  In  1939  the  United 
States  Department  of  Agriculture  established  the  first  of  four 
Regional  Research  Laboratories  at  Peoria,  Illinois.  Other 
laboratories  are  at  New  Orleans,  Philadelphia,  and  near  San 
Francisco. 

"Future  historians,"  wrote  David  Dietz,  Scripps-Howard 
science  editor,  "may  look  back  to  the  establishment  of  these 
laboratories  as  the  most  important  event  of  1939.  They  will 
seek  to  solve  the  farm  problem  in  the  only  way  that  scientists 

199 


200  Miracles  Ahead! 

believe  it  can  be  solved — by  finding  new  markets  for  farm 
products  and  new  uses  for  them  in  industry." 1 

"The  very  ancient  art  of  agriculture,"  added  Wheeler 
McMillen,  president  of  the  National  Farm  Chemurgic  Coun- 
cil, "is  today  in  possession  of  new  tools  of  such  surpassing 
importance  as  we  have  barely  begun  to  suspect.  Organic 
chemistry,  one  of  these  tools,  applies  terrific  temperatures  and 
tremendous  pressures — and  a  pot  of  beans  becomes  an  auto- 
mobile part  instead  of  a  bowl  of  soup." 

Dr.  George  Washington  Carver,  famed  Negro  scientist, 
who  died  in  January,  1943,  has  been  called  the  "first  and 
greatest  chemurgist."  Born  of  slave  parents,  he  worked  his 
way  through  Iowa  State  College  in  1896  and  in  that  same 
year  was  offered  a  position  by  Booker  T.  Washington, 
founder  and  president  of  Tuskegee  Institute,  Macon  County, 
Alabama.  He  remained  at  Tuskegee  all  his  life,  demonstrating 
how  the  South's  "unproductive"  soil  could  be  made  to  pro- 
duce rich  crops  and  finding  new  industrial  uses  for  farm  prod- 
ucts long  before  the  word  "chemurgy"  was  coined. 

Like  most  of  the  South,  Macon  County  then  grew  cotton 
and  little  else.  Dr.  Carver  knew  this  open-row  crop  exposed 
the  land  to  deadly  water  erosion  and  destroyed  the  fertile 
soil. 

Rackham  Holt,  author  of  an  excellent  biography  of  Dr. 
Carver,  told  in  the  Christian  Science  Monitor,  June  7,  1941, 
how  he  helped  break  the  strangle  hold  that  cotton  had  on  the 
agricultural  South: 

"If  Southern  farmers  were  to  reduce  their  cotton  acreage 
they  must  raise  other  crops,  and  then  a  market  for  these  must 
be  found.  Sweet  potatoes  could  be  cultivated  easily,  but  they 
were  highly  perishable  and  yielded  immense  quantities  of  small 
cull  potatoes  which  could  not  be  used  as  food.  George  Carver 
abhorred  waste,  and  from  his  laboratory  by-products  rushed 

1  Chapter  XIV  shows  how  a  liberal  diet  for  all  American  families  also  will 
do  much  to  solve  our  "farm  problem." 


Fortunes  in  Agriculture  201 

into  the  vacuum.  In  the  course  of  time  he  produced  1 1 8,  from 
shoe  polish  to  rubber. 

"Peanuts  had  the  great  advantage  possessed  by  all  pod- 
bearing  plants  of  abstracting  fertilizing  nitrogen  from  the  air, 
thus  enriching  the  soil  instead  of  depleting  it.  From  this  now 
famous  legume  (now  a  $20o,ooo,ooo-a-year  industry,  thanks 
to  Dr.  Carver)  he  produced  a  list,  always  out  of  date  before 
it  could  be  printed,  though  it  numbers  some  300  items — from 
soup  to  nuts  gastronomically,  and  including  soap,  metal  pol- 
ish, plastic  paper,  axle  grease." 

Dr.  Carver  could  have  been  a  wealthy  man,  but  he  refused 
to  accept  money  for  his  hundreds  of  inventions. 

Rackham  Holt  wrote  of  how  a  representative  of  a  great 
paint  company  came  to  see  a  color  Dr.  Carver  had  made  from 
Macon  County  clay: 

"  T)r.  Carver,'  said  the  expert,  'according  to  our  observa- 
tions, this  color  is  70  times  bluer  than  blue.  We  would  like  to 
put  it  on  the  market.' 

"  'No,  no,  no!'  was  the  alarmed  response.  'I  don't  want  to 
commercialize  it.' 

"This  is  the  rule  to  which  he  firmly  adhered.  From  all  over 
America,  from  China,  India,  Japan,  Russia,  came  emissaries  or 
letters  asking  for  help  in  problems.  Often  checks  were  in- 
cluded. Back  would  go  the  check,  and  the  solution  with  it, 
whether  it  was  how  to  dye  cement  or  turn  peanuts  into  lino- 
leum or  into  milk  for  babies  in  the  Belgian  Congo.  In  all  his 
efforts  he  constantly  asked  himself,  'How  can  this  be  adapted 
to  the  requirements  of  humble  people?' ' 

Dr.  Carver's  pioneering  work  on  peanuts  and  sweet  pota- 
toes has  been  followed  up  by  other  chemurgists.  Progress  has 
been  made  on  a  textile  fiber  from  peanuts.  A  heat-insulating 
board,  nearly  equal  to  cork  and  much  cheaper,  has  been  made 
from  peanut  shells.  Sweet  potatoes  are  used  for  the  manufac- 
ture of  industrial  alcohol,  and  for  starch  to  make  adhesives  for 
stamps  and  envelopes. 


2O2  Miracles  Ahead! 

The  bulk  of  our  heavy  imports  of  tapioca  for  adhesives, 
puddings,  and  soups  came  from  the  Netherlands  Indies  until 
the  Japanese  took  over.  Now  sweet  potatoes,  as  well  as  white 
potatoes  and  waxy  corn,  are  furnishing  vital  supplies  of  starch. 
Waxy  corn,  which  originated  in  China,  was  developed  in  the 
United  States  by  the  Department  of  Agriculture  in  the  past 
two  years.  It  is  an  excellent  substitute  for  tapioca. 

New  Uses  for  Skimmed  Milk 

Great  strides  have  been  made  recently  in  using  billions  of 
pounds  of  skim  milk — the  residue  left  after  butterfat  has  been 
extracted  for  butter,  table  cream,  or  other  purposes.  The  pro- 
tein-rich skim  milk  has  been  used  to  make  casein  for  the  slick 
coating  on  magazine  paper,  glues,  plastic  buttons,  buckles, 
and  water  paints.  But  much  of  the  skim  milk  was  fed  to  live- 
stock for  want  of  some  better  use.  Now,  however,  casein 
from  skim  milk  produces  a  warm,  durable  synthetic  fiber, 
Aralac,  used  today  in  dress  fabrics,  hats,  ties,  scarfs,  blankets. 
The  new  fiber  blends  well  with  wool,  mohair,  cotton,  rayon. 
It  is  more  expensive  than  rayon  and  cotton  but  less  costly 
than  wool  and  fur,  and  will  help  particularly  to  supplement 
our  deficient  supply  of  wool. 

The  Soybean 

Another  important  source  of  protein  needed  by  industry  is 
the  soybean.  When  these  beans  were  imported  from  Man- 
churia years  ago,  self-respecting  cows  turned  up  their  noses 
at  them.  Today  these  beans  rank  near  the  top  of  the  list  of 
cash  crops.  No  other  crop  under  the  sun  is  quite  like  the  soy- 
bean. It  contains  twice  as  much  protein  as  meat,  about  twice 
the  calcium  of  milk,  and  more  than  double  the  minerals  of 
wheat.  And,  because  of  its  rich  oil  and  protein  base,  the  soy- 


Fortunes  in  Agriculture  203 

bean  can  be  used  to  make  a  great  variety  of  products  ranging 
from  foods  and  soap  to  varnishes,  textiles,  and  automobile 
parts. 

This  incomplete  list  gives  you  a  rough  idea  of  what  to  ex- 
pect of  the  soybean  in  the  future: 

Foods:  substitutes  for  butter,  lard,  meat,  coffee,  and  as 
flour,  cooking  and  salad  oil,  and  cereals.  Clothing:  substitutes 
for  wool,  cotton,  leather,  rubber.  Cosmetics:  soap,  face  cream, 
lipstick.  Medicine,  synthetic  hormones,  vitamin  concentrates, 
medicinal  oils.  Home:  paint,  varnish,  roofing,  linoleum,  dra- 
peries. Industry:  lubricants,  explosives,  adhesives,  automobile 
parts,  printing  ink. 

The  Castor  Bean — a  New  Treasure 

Chemurgists  have  promoted  the  growing  of  many  other 
crops  with  industrial  uses.  They  believe,  for  example,  that  the 
castor  bean  may  match  the  success  of  soybeans  as  a  cash  crop. 
Aside  from  its  well-known  medicinal  use,  castor  oil  is  used  in 
soap,  paints,  varnishes,  inks,  linoleum,  artificial  leather,  dyes, 
and  as  a  lubricant  for  automotive,  aviation,  and  industrial  en- 
gines. The  fine,  strong  fiber  of  the  plant  may  prove  valuable 
for  cordage  and  textiles  and  the  rest  of  the  stalk  is  convertible 
into  cellulose  for  making  plastics  and  many  other  products 
for  the  armed  forces  and  civilians.  We  have  imported  millions 
of  dollars'  worth  of  castor  beans  from  India  and  Brazil,  and 
the  raising  of  the  beans  in  the  United  States  has  been  discour- 
aged by  low  prices.  But  when  the  chemurgists  get  through, 
castor  bean  fields  may  rival  the  cornfields  of  Iowa. 

Flax  Straw  for  Cigarette  Paper 

A  lot  of  cigarette  paper  goes  up  in  smoke  each  year  in  the 
United  States.  Three  years  ago  our  cigarette  manufacturers 


204  Miracles  Ahead! 

were  dependent  upon  paper  made  in  France,  Belgium,  and 
other  European  countries  from  linen  rags  and  old  hemp  sail- 
cloth. Today  hundreds  of  tons  of  cigarette  paper  are  made 
each  year  from  flax  straw  produced  in  the  United  States. 
Flaxseed  also  is  converted  into  linseed  oil  for  paints  and  var- 
nishes. Flax  will  give  the  wheat-producing  states  another 
valuable  cash  crop. 

Hemp  is  another  fiber  crop  that  can  be  used  in  making 
cigarette  paper,  and  it  is  also  converted  into  rope,  twine,  and 
heavy  thread.  Hempseed  is  useful  for  oil.  Ramie,  chia,  and 
perilla  are  small  plants  that  may  someday  be  important  farm 
crops.  Ramie  is  useful  for  fiber,  and  chia  and  perilla  furnish 
oily  seeds.  Tung  oil,  made  from  the  nuts  of  a  tree  and  usually 
imported  from  China,  is  being  produced  in  Florida  and  Louisi- 
ana. This  valuable  oil  is  needed  to  waterproof  insulation  on 
electrical  equipment.  English  walnuts  yield  an  oil  for  food 
and  for  soaps  and  paints.  Ground  walnut  shells  serve  as  a  base 
for  insecticides,  plastics,  firebrick,  and  dynamite.  New  uses 
for  pecans,  almonds,  and  filberts  are  being  found  every  day. 

Our  Own  Herbs  and  Drugs 

Because  of  the  excessive  amount  of  hand  labor  required,  we 
have  preferred  to  import  herbs  and  drugs  from  foreign  coun- 
tries. But  most  of  these  products  can  be  grown  in  the  United 
States,  and  their  production  has  been  encouraged  to  take  the 
place  of  imports  cut  by  war  conditions. 

Cotton  By-Products 

Chemurgy  also  has  been  busy  finding  new  uses  for  the 
older  farm  crops.  First  consider  King  Cotton,  who  has  suf- 
fered several  years  from  price-depressing  surpluses.  Machines 
have  been  developed  to  remove  down  or  short  fibers  from 


Fortunes  in  Agriculture  205 

cottonseed.  This  down  is  called  linters  and  is  almost  pure  cel- 
lulose. It  is  used  to  produce  rayon,  plastics  for  fountain  pens 
and  automobile  safety  glass,  moving-picture  film,  and  explo- 
sives. Cotton  stalks  can  be  used  for  wallboard.  Cottonseed  oil 
is  converted  into  vegetable  shortening,  margarine,  and  salad 
oil. 


Cottonleather 

Cottonleather,  a  heavy,  woven  cotton  fabric  impregnated 
with  a  plastic  binder,  has  been  developed  by  the  Southern 
Friction  Materials  Company,  near  Charlotte,  North  Carolina. 
This  tan-colored  material  is  as  hard,  but  also  as  flexible,  as 
sole  leather.  The  small  plant  rolled  out  the  Cottonleather  at 
the  rate  of  a  mile  in  four  hours.  When  this  output  did  not 
meet  the  demand,  the  company  began  licensing  large  manu- 
facturers to  produce  Cottonleather.  The  Bigelow-Sanford 
Carpet  Co.,  Inc.,  also  announced  the  development  of  a  syn- 
thetic outer  sole  for  shoes  which  it  said  would  give  50  per 
cent  more  "mileage"  than  leather.  It  is  made  of  tightly  woven 
cotton  treated  under  pressure  with  a  synthetic  resin  to  in- 
crease resistance  to  abrasion,  heat,  and  moisture.  Bigelow- 
Sanford  believes  the  new  product  will  become  a  permanent 
factor  in  the  shoe  industry. 

Cotton  Fire  Hose 

Cotton  technologists  in  one  of  the  four  Regional  Research 
Laboratories  of  the  United  States  Department  of  Agriculture 
have  found  new  uses  for  cotton  cloth  and  yarn.  Until  re- 
cently all  sandbags  for  military  uses  were  made  from  jute  or 
burlap,  imported  from  India.  Department  of  Agriculture  re- 
search workers  developed  specially  treated  cotton  fabrics  that 
are  satisfactory  for  sandbag  purposes.  These  men  also  have 


206  Miracles  Ahead! 

pressed  research  on  the  production  of  fire  hose  which  would 
not  require  scarce  rubber  or  linen.  Large  amounts  of  cotton 
fire-hose  yarn  will  be  used,  opening  another  market  for 
cotton. 

Cotton  Roads 

Tire  manufacturers  long  have  used  cotton  fabric  in  tire 
carcasses.  More  recently  "cotton  roads"  have  been  built  in  a 
number  of  states  to  try  out  a  specially  woven  cotton  mesh 
used  as  a  reinforcement  for  asphalt  highways.  "Some  day, 
perhaps,"  declared  the  National  Association  of  Manufactur- 
ers, "you  will  ride  on  partly  cotton  roads  in  a  partly  cotton 
automobile  on  partly  cotton  tires  to  a  picnic  where  you  will 
use  cotton  seed  oil  on  a  salad  which  you  will  eat  with  a  cotton- 
handled  fork." 

Corn  for  Photographic  Films 

Much  of  our  corn  is  used  to  feed  hogs  and  other  farm 
animals.  Millions  of  bushels  also  are  converted  into  corn  meal, 
cornstarch,  corn  syrup,  and  corn  sugar  by  manufacturing 
plants.  But  chemurgists  have  shown  us  that  the  cornstalks  and 
corncobs  should  not  be  ignored.  They  contain  valuable  cellu- 
lose used  in  the  production  of  fibers,  photographic  films, 
plastics,  and  scores  of  other  products. 

Oat  Hulls  in  the  Synthetic-Rubber  Field 

The  Industrial  Bulletin  of  Arthur  D.  Little,  Inc.,  points  out 
that  furfural,  an  old  chemurgic  product  made  from  oat  hulls, 
is  getting  a  boost  from  the  synthetic-rubber  program  which 
may  give  it  a  much  bigger  place  in  the  postwar  chemical 
world: 

"Furfural  was  introduced  commercially  in  1922  by  the 
Quaker  Oats  Co.,  following  a  research  program  on  the  dispo- 


Fortunes  in  Agriculture  207 

sition  of  the  oat  hulls  resulting  from  the  milling  of  rolled 
oats.  It  is  manufactured  rather  simply  by  the  reaction  of 
dilute  sulfuric  acid  with  the  oat  hulls  and  is  a  mobile  pale- 
colored  liquid  with  a  pungent  odor.  ...  It  was  first  used  in 
synthetic  resin  manufacture  to  react  with  phenol,  as  does 
formaldehyde  in  forming  the  phenol-formaldehyde,  or  bake- 
lite,  type  of  resin.  Phenol-furfural  resins,  which  were  developed 
before  furfural  became  commercially  available,  are  distinc- 
tive in  some  respects,  including  free  flowing  during  molding; 
their  uses  include  bonding  of  abrasive  wheels  and  they  are 
said  to  be  used  in  cementing  most  U.  S.  electric  light  bulbs 
to  their  brass  bases. 

"The  largest  use  of  furfural,  however,  has  been  as  a  solvent; 
in  1927  it  was  found  useful  for  refining  wood  rosin,  another 
chemurgic  development,  to  produce  a  lighter-colored,  more 
salable  product.  Since  1933  a  number  of  plants  using  furfural 
in  the  solvent  refining  of  lubricating  oil  and  diesel  fuel  have 
been  built.  ...  Its  solvent  action  is  responsible  for  furfural's 
place  in  the  synthetic  rubber  program,  where  it  will  be  used 
in  a  number  of  plants  to  purify  butadiene  by  dissolving  the 
butadiene  and  thus  separating  it  from  undesired  reaction 
products." 

Several  other  farm  crops  are  being  used  in  the  synthetic- 
rubber  program.  Alcohol  from  grains,  and  from  high-test 
molasses,  is  converted  into  butadiene  for  the  manufacture  of 
Buna  S  rubber.  And  in  June,  1943,  the  Ontario  Paper  Com- 
pany plant  at  Thorold,  Ontario,  began  producing  alcohol  for 
rubber  from  waste  sulphite  liquor — a  by-product  of  the  man- 
ufacture of  sulphite  pulp  for  paper. 

By-Products  of  Wood 

Mention  of  the  Ontario  plant  serves  to  introduce  the  subject 
of  wood  chemistry.  We  are  inclined  to  forget  that  a  tree,  like 
coal  or  oil,  is  a  vegetable  matter  and  can  be  made  to  produce 


2o8  Miracles  Ahead! 

as  many  products  as  the  others.  Wood  is  a  combination  of 
cellulose,  long  hairlike  fibers;  a  small  amount  of  sugar;  and 
lignin,  a  resin  or  natural  glue  that  holds  the  fibers  of  cellulose 
together.  Cellulose  serves  as  the  base  for  plastics,  rayon,  paper, 
and  many  other  products.  Lignin  is  the  source  of  vanillin  in 
vanilla  extract,  which  is  replacing  the  natural  product  since 
that  supply  was  cut  off  by  the  war.  Since  it  is  a  good  adhesive, 
lignin  is  used  to  bind  laminated  and  plywoods  for  the  con- 
struction of  airplanes.  It  also  serves  as  a  tanning  agent  for 
leather  and  produces  an  excellent,  low-cost  plastic. 

The  millions  of  gallons  of  sulphite  liquors  which  are 
dumped  into  streams  and  lakes  by  our  paper  mills  contain  valu- 
able lignin  and  sugar  from  wood.  Therefore  the  plant  at 
Thorold,  Ontario,  which  uses  the  waste  sulphite  liquor,  is  a 
great  step  forward.  It  was  made  possible  by  the  work  of  Dr. 
Donald  F.  Othmer  and  his  associates  at  the  Brooklyn  (New 
York)  Polytechnic  Institute  and  uses  a  process  far  superior  to 
that  of  the  Nazis,  the  pioneers  in  this  work.  Dr.  Othmer  adds 
that  the  thousands  of  tons  of  sawdust  which  are  burned  each 
year  are  a  gold  mine  of  valuable  chemicals.  He  treated  one 
hundred  pounds  of  sawdust  with  chemicals  such  as  lye,  lime, 
and  sulphuric  acid  and  obtained  one  hundred  and  twelve 
pounds  of  oxalic  acid  (used  to  make  celluloid,  rayon,  explo- 
sives, leathers,  etc.),  twenty  pounds  of  acetic  acid,  four  pounds 
of  formic  acid,  and  six  pounds  of  wood  alcohol.  Sawdust  and 
wood  chips  also  have  been  used  by  William  H.  Mason  to 
make  a  valuable  building  material,  Masonite. 

For  many  years  the  Northern  spruce  supplied  the  pulp- 
wood  for  newsprint.  Then  the  late  Dr.  Charles  E.  Herty 
proved  that  the  Southern  pine,  which  grows  rapidly  on  all 
sorts  of  land,  could  be  used  to  make  newsprint.  Now  the 
acres  of  Southern  pine  are  paying  farmers  bigger  dividends. 

Dr.  Henry  G.  Knight,  chief  of  the  Bureau  of  Agricultural 
Chemistry  and  Engineering  of  the  Department  of  Agricul- 


Fortunes  in  Agriculture  209 

ture,  tells  how  another  decidedly  Southern  industry — that  of 
naval  stores — has  aided  the  war  effort  and  will  prove  even 
more  important  in  the  future. 

"In  the  early  days,"  he  said,  "this  industry's  principal  prod- 
uct— pine  pitch — was  considered  indispensable  for  caulking 
ships.  Today  the  raw  materials  are  rosin  and  turpentine  al- 
most entirely.  Their  derivatives  figure  prominently  in  war 
materials.  Thanks  to  turpentine  and  a  farseeing  synthetic 
chemical  industry,  we  can  now  get  synthetically  the  camphor 
we  need  for  smokeless  powder,  plastics  and  other  require- 
ments. Our  scientists  discovered  some  time  ago  that  American 
turpentine  is  rich  in  pinenes  and  constitutes  excellent  raw 
material  for  synthetic  camphor.  Unlike  World  War  I,  when 
Japan  was  our  ally,  the  supply  of  natural  camphor  is  now 
completely  shut  off." 

No  Soap  Shortage  Ahead 

Dr.  Knight  continues: 

"The  supply  of  palm  and  coconut  oils  from  the  Pacific 
Islands  is  also  shut  off  and  fat  and  oils  available  for  soap  stock 
are  steadily  decreasing.  We  need  fear  no  serious  soap  shortage, 
however,  for  we  can  look  to  rosin  to  supplement  our  soap 
stock.  As  this  Bureau  has  shown,  rosin  is  not  a  filler,  but  when 
judiciously  used  with  soap  oils  it  will  make  good  soap. 

"The  naval  stores  industry  is  not  one  of  the  big  industries 
of  this  country.  Nevertheless,  some  four  to  five  hundred  thou- 
sand people  in  the  pinebelt — from  North  Carolina  to  Eastern 
Texas — depend  on  it  in  whole  or  part  for  a  living.  Today  the 
pine  resin,  or  'pine  gum'  as  it  is  called,  is  still  converted  into 
but  two  raw  materials — rosin  and  turpentine.  But,"  he  adds, 
"the  natural  resin  complex,  consisting  largely  of  terpenes  and 
diterpene,  is,  like  coal  tar,  destined  to  become  a  source  for  a 
host  of  valuable  chemicals — chemicals  which  are  not  only  im- 


2io  Miracles  Ahead! 

portant  in  the  present  emergency  but  which  may  play  an  im- 
portant role  in  the  post-war  economy  of  the  South." 

Experts  on  wood  chemistry  emphasize  that  other  natural 
resources,  like  coal,  oil,  and  minerals,  are  exhaustible.  But 
scientific  reforestation  and  conservation  measures  can  con- 
stantly replenish  our  supply  of  wood,  and  further  research 
will  open  new  markets  to  this  valuable  raw  material. 

We  now  look  at  research  in  other  fields.  Here,  too,  we  find 
new  products  and  processes  that  will  help  the  farmer  grow 
better  crops  on  the  farm  of  tomorrow,  and  also  enjoy  life 
more  while  he  is  doing  it. 

Soil  Building 

The  synthesis  of  ammonia  to  supply  nitrogen  for  explosives 
will  result  in  abundant  supplies  of  low-cost  fertilizer  being 
available  in  postwar  years  to  increase  crops  and  enrich  worn- 
out  lands.  When  plants  grow  they  remove  nitrogen  and  other 
materials  from  the  soil.  If  the  plants  die  where  they  grow, 
most  of  these  materials  are  returned  to  the  soil.  But  when 
plants  are  removed  from  the  soil  these  materials  are  lost,  and 
they  must  be  returned  by  the  use  of  certain  soil-building  crops 
or  by  the  application  of  fertilizer. 

In  recent  years  the  TVA  has  developed  an  excellent  pro- 
gram of  experiments  with  phosphate  fertilizers  and  in  the 
education  of  farmers  for  better  agriculture.  In  two  hundred 
years  erosion  by  wind  and  water  has  ruined  or  impoverished 
about  282,000,000  acres  in  the  United  States.  Water  erosion 
takes  more  than  3,000,000,000  tons  of  soil  from  farmlands 
each  year.  Experts  in  the  TVA  and  the  Department  of  Agri- 
culture have  shown  farmers  how  to  protect  their  land  by  ter- 
racing, strip  cropping,  contour  plowing,  check  dams,  and 
crop  rotation.  These  methods  make  "running  water  walk  off 
the  land,"  thus  keeping  it  from  carrying  away  valuable  top- 


Fortunes  in  Agriculture  211 

soil.  They  also  protect  the  land  from  wind  erosion. 

Government  officials  assure  us  that  the  all-out  effort  to  raise 
"Food  for  Freedom"  is  not  going  to  cause  them  to  forget  soil- 
conservation  programs. 

"We  had  a  good  food  administration  in  World  War  I,  but 
we  didn't  have  an  agriculture  program  at  all,"  they  explain. 
"That  was  why  the  range  of  the  great  Western  plains  was 
ploughed  up  and  planted  to  wheat — and  finally  turned  to 
dust.  We  have  a  program  now  and  it  will  not  include  any  dust 
bowls  caused  by  wind  erosion  on  unprotected  land.  There  is 
a  surplus  of  wheat,  and  that  land  which  has  been  restored  by 
tree  planting  and  the  return  of  Buffalo  grass  will  remain  a 
range  just  as  it  was  cut  out  to  be." 

Soil-less  Agriculture 

In  areas  where  the  soil  cannot  be  saved,  or  where  there  isn't 
enough  soil  to  start  with,  the  new  soil-less  agriculture  can  take 
over  successfully.  More  than  a  dozen  years  of  experiments  in 
the  cultivation  of  vegetable  crops  through  water  feeding,  or 
hydroponics,  rather  than  through  soil  feeding,  has  proved  the 
value  of  soil-less  agriculture.  The  pioneer  in  hydroponics  is 
Professor  W.  F.  Gericke  of  the  University  of  California.  He 
grew  vegetables  in  shallow  tanks  of  water  to  which  the  chemi- 
cal fertilizers  had  been  added.  The  seeds  were  sown  in  a  layer 
of  sawdust  or  moss  on  wire  netting  just  above  the  water  into 
which  the  roots  grew. 

In  a  letter  to  Lancelot  Hogben,  Professor  Gericke  gave 
details  of  the  yields  obtained  by  tank  culture.  Four  basins, 
each  providing  25  sq.  ft.  of  water  surface,  yielded  1,224 
Ib.  of  ripe  tomatoes.  The  28  Ib.  of  chemicals  required  for  this 
crop  cost  less  than  three  cents  a  pound.  A  basin  providing 
one-hundredth  of  an  acre  of  water  surface  yielded  24.65 
bushels  of  potatoes.  These  were  grown  in  the  open  and  re- 


212  Miracles  Ahead! 

quired  40  Ib.  of  salts.  While  large  yields  can  also  be  obtained 
with  cereals,  the  cost  of  chemicals  is  here  so  large  an  item  that 
the  method  may  not  justify  the  cost  of  the  equipment. 

Farming  in  the  Desert 

Hogben  believes  "we  can  only  guess  at  the  wider  implica- 
tions of  this  biotechnical  advance."  Plant  growth  is  limited  by 
three  main  factors:  light  energy,  mineral  salts,  and  water. 
Agricultural  production  has  hitherto  been  confined  to  regions 
where  the  supply  of  these  three  essential  elements  is  already 
adequate,  or,  as  with  the  last  two,  where  the  local  supply  can 
be  supplemented  by  manuring  or  irrigation  without  too  much 
trouble  or  loss.  The  energy  of  sunlight  goes  to  waste  over  the 
hot  deserts  where  rainfall  is  scanty,  and  the  sand  will  hold 
neither  water  nor  salts.  Tank  culture,  on  the  other  hand,  limits 
water  loss  to  evaporation. 

The  Great  American  Desert,  and  other  wastelands  in  the 
United  States,  may  be  turned  into  farms  and  factories  by 
hydroponics.  And  the  city  dweller  may  be  able  to  balance  his 
food  budget  and  give  his  family  a  better  diet  by  rigging  up  a 
soil-less  garden  in  the  living  room. 

Growth-Promoting  Techniques 

Exciting  experiments  have  been  conducted  with  growth- 
promoting  substances.  Scientists  in  the  Bureau  of  Plant  Indus- 
try of  the  Department  of  Agriculture  have  found  that  toma- 
toes can  be  made  to  produce  seedless,  more  solidly  meaty 
fruits  by  treating  the  plants  with  the  fumes  of  naphthoxyacetic 
acid.  Previous  methods  of  promoting  plant  growth  usually  in- 
volved the  use  of  sprays  or  even  direct  application  of  the  sub- 
stances to  the  plants.  The  new  method  saves  a  lot  of  time  and 
labor. 


Fortunes  in  Agriculture  213 

The  Russians  report  that  butylene  gas  has  a  stimulating 
effect  on  the  growth  of  fruit  trees.  They  enclose  the  trees  in 
a  tent  for  two  weeks  before  the  normal  or  desired  leafing,  and 
pass  butylene  gas  into  the  tents  for  a  period  of  one  or  two 
hours.  Other  experiments  in  the  United  States  show  that  pota- 
toes will  grow  twice  as  fast  and  increase  their  yield  if  treated 
with  propylene,  a  petroleum  by-product. 

One  of  the  most  powerful  growth-promoting  substances  is 
colchicine,  a  poisonous  drug  extracted  from  the  roots  of  the 
ordinary  autumn  crocus.  It  acts  on  the  chromosomes  of  seeds 
to  create  new  varieties  of  giant  plants.  Soon  you  will  be  able 
to  have  blackberries,  strawberries,  tomatoes,  radishes,  and 
other  fruits  and  vegetables  two  or  three  times  the  size  of  any 
present  species.  Giant  garden  flowers  also  will  be  available. 
Tobacco,  cotton,  sugar  cane,  and  many  other  plants  which 
furnish  the  farmer  most  of  his  income  will  be  larger,  of  better 
quality,  and  more  resistant  to  disease. 

Meteorologists  are  busy  today  telling  Allied  bombers  when 
the  weather  will  be  right  to  go  out  and  dump  a  load  of  bombs 
on  German  war  plants.  Important  gains  have  been  made  in 
the  long-term  prediction  of  weather.  All  this  knowledge  will 
be  on  hand  in  the  future  to  tell  the  farmer  when  to  plant  crops 
and  when  to  expect  trouble.  Scientists  are  determined  to  "do 
something"  about  the  weather,  and  this  adds  up  to  good  news 
for  the  farmer. 

Making  the  Farm  More  Livable 

We  have  talked  a  lot  about  how  abundant  supplies  of  low- 
cost  light  metals,  alloy  steels,  and  plastics  will  revolutionize 
the  construction  of  homes,  airplanes,  automobiles,  and  other 
postwar  products.  These  materials  will  make  better  agricul- 
tural machinery,  which  can  be  sold  at  low  prices  and  will  be 
easier  to  keep  in  repair.  This  will  mean  that  the  farmer  can 


Miracles  Ahead! 

raise  and  harvest  his  crops  with  fewer  man-hours  of  labor, 
and  therefore  at  less  production  cost.  We  have  already  voted 
the  jeep  "the  vehicle  most  likely  to  succeed"  when  it  is  grad- 
uated from  the  Army  and  goes  to  work  for  the  farmer. 

Prefabricated  farm  buildings  and  dwellings,  which  can  be 
assembled  and  demounted  in  a  few  hours,  will  bring  better 
living  and  working  conditions  within  the  reach  of  many  more 
farmers,  as  will  the  advance  in  radio,  television,  "walkie- 
talkie"  phones,  and  other  electronic  devices. 

The  revolution  in  transportation  will  also  aid  the  farmer. 
No  longer  will  his  market  for  perishable  products  be  re- 
stricted by  distance  from  urban  areas.  Air-transport  lines, 
using  light  cargo  planes  and  helicopters  for  feeder-line  service 
to  isolated  sections,  will  pick  up  his  products  and  deliver 
factory-made  goods  to  his  door.  Then,  too,  the  dehydration 
and  quick  freezing  of  farm  products,  plus  speedy  air  delivery 
to  faraway  lands,  will  broaden  the  farmer's  market  and  help 
banish  the  fear  of  price-depressing  surpluses.  The  paradox  of 
surplus  crops  and  starving  people  will  be  banished  by  lower- 
cost  production  and  lower-cost,  speedy  transportation  of 
farm  products. 

All  the  above  factors  should  add  up  to  a  shift  of  more  peo- 
ple from  crowded  cities  to  "family-size  farms"  near  urban 
areas.  Two  Harvard  architects,  Dr.  Walter  Gropius  and  Dr. 
Martin  Wagner,  envision  a  postwar  America  in  which  urban 
congestion  would  be  relieved  by  new  townships  of  five  thou- 
sand persons,  ranged  along  a  network  of  superhighways. 
They  contend  that  these  tiny,  factory-residential  towns,  sur- 
rounded by  individual  farm  belts,  would  help  empty  the  city 
slums  and  inaugurate  a  new  era  for  millions  of  industrial 
workers  and  farmers. 

The  National  Association  of  Manufacturers  comments  that 
"the  rise  of  small  factories  in  rural  communities  has  helped 
in  some  areas  to  provide  work  for  farm  labor  needed  only  at 


Fortunes  in  Agriculture  215 

certain  seasons.  Such  factories  produce  parts  of  products 
assembled  by  larger  factories,  or  partly  manufactured  mate- 
rials to  be  completed  elsewhere.  In  other  fields  of  manufac- 
turing it  has  been  found  also  that  small  plants  in  rural  areas 
have  advantages.  If  manufacturing  continues  to  spread  in  this 
way,  this  movement  too  will  aid  in  solving  present  farm 
problems." 

In  its  report  on  postwar  planning  the  National  Resources 
Planning  Board  noted  that  the  war  program  had  accelerated 
the  spread  of  plants  to  small  cities  and  towns  throughout  the 
country.  It  urged  that  plants  in  certain  communities  be  oper- 
ated after  the  war  to  prevent  the  dislocation  of  farming  and 
business  life  in  those  communities. 

As  we  see  it,  the  farmer  can  look  forward  to  a  postwar 
world  in  which  advances  in  chemurgy  and  many  other  fields 
will  bring  him  a  higher  income  and  better  living  and  working 
conditions. 


XIV 

FOOD  FOR  BUOYANT  HEALTH 

THE  MIRACLES  AHEAD  in  food  in  our  world  of  tomorrow  will 
not  be  miracles  of  strange  new  concoctions.  They  will  be 
miracles  of  enough  food  and  enough  of  the  right  foods,  for 
all  the  peoples  of  the  world.  This  miracle,  when  it  is  accom- 
plished, will  be  a  threefold  accomplishment  of  education,  pro- 
duction, and  science. 

Even  America,  with  our  much-boasted  high  standard  of 
living,  has  never  been  a  well-fed  nation.  In  1929,  our  richest 
year,  three-fourths  of  our  people  spent  five  hundred  dollars 
or  less  per  family  for  food.  Three-fourths  of  our  people  lived 
on  a  diet  that  was  principally  oleomargarine,  flour,  canned 
milk,  potatoes,  and  dried  beans.  Only  one-fourth  of  our  people 
in  that,  our  richest,  year  were  able  to  afford  adequate  or  liberal 
diets,  including  the  more  expensive  foods  like  fresh  butter, 
eggs,  vegetables,  fruits  and  lean  meats. 

Steibling  and  Ward,  of  the  United  States  Bureau  of  Home 
Economics,  contend  that  America  has  never  produced  enough 
food  to  give  all  its  people  a  liberal  diet,  rich  in  meat,  dairy 
products,  and  fresh  vegetables.  If  the  other  three-fourths  of 
our  people  are  to  have  those  foods,  it  would  be  necessary  for 
our  farmers,  according  to  these  economists,  to  produce  70 
per  cent  more  cows,  35  per  cent  more  beef  cattle,  35  per  cent 
more  pigs,  35  per  cent  more  poultry,  50  per  cent  more  sheep, 
100  per  cent  more  vegetables,  and  100  per  cent  more  fruits. 

Why,  then,  have  we  had  periods  of  apparent  surplus?  Two 
reasons  can  cause  crops  to  rot  in  one  state  while  people  live  on 
a  mere  subsistence  diet  in  another  state:  first,  the  people  may 

216 


Food  for  Buoyant  Health  217 

not  have  enough  money  to  spend  for  a  liberal  diet  even  if  the 
food  were  available  in  the  markets;  second,  dislocations  and 
inadequacies  in  transportation,  farm  labor,  and  factory  help 
can  be  severe  enough  to  cause  failure  to  care  for  the  crops. 

Urgent  Need  of  Food  Education 

As  a  nation  we  are  probably  better  fed  now  than  before  the 
war.  For  we  are  being  educated. 

We  are  being  educated  to  think  in  terms  of  conserving  our 
food  supply.  The  Food  Distribution  Administration  has  given 
us  some  appalling  figures  on  the  waste  of  our  food  supply. 
According  to  them,  the  food  wasted  in  American  homes  in 
1942  was  sufficient  to  feed  the  entire  population  and  the 
armed  forces,  too,  for  eight  weeks. 

The  armed  forces  and  Lend-Lease  took  1 3  per  cent  of  our 
total  food  supply.  American  homes  wasted  15  per  cent  of  the 
total  food  supply.  The  total  wastage  of  food,  from  the  farm 
to  the  garbage  pail,  was  40  per  cent.  In  other  words,  we 
wasted  three  times  as  much  food  as  it  took  to  feed  our  Army 
and  to  provide  all  the  food  sent  abroad  in  Lend-Lease. 

We  are  being  educated  to  stop  this  waste.  And  we  are  be- 
ing educated  to  think  in  terms  of  buying  health  when  we  buy 
food.  Until  the  present  emergency  made  the  health  of  the 
nation  a  matter  of  acute  concern,  our  interest  in  a  really  suf- 
ficient diet  was  moderate,  to  say  the  least.  When  enriched 
bread  was  first  put  on  the  market,  many  storekeepers  intro- 
duced it  and  then  stopped  handling  it.  There  was  not  enough 
consumer  demand  for  the  added  value  to  enable  the  store- 
keeper to  stock  it.  People  went  right  on  buying  the  same 
wrapper  they  had  bought  before,  and  the  enriched  bread  lay 
on  the  shelf.  Education  is  changing  that  situation. 

However,  education  still  has  a  long  way  to  go  in  changing 
the  habits  of  the  American  public.  It  has  long  been  a  favorite 


2i8  Miracles  Ahead! 

boast  of  many  people  that  they  don't  "eat  to  live";  they  "live 
to  eat."  But  too  often  the  man  who  "lives  to  eat"  does  not  eat 
to  live  at  the  peak  of  his  health. 

Dr.  Victor  G.  Heiser,  former  staff  member  of  the  Rocke- 
feller Institute  for  Medical  Research,  agrees  with  other  scien- 
tists that  physical  degeneration  is  the  price  modern  man  has 
paid  for  his  present  type  of  "progress."  According  to  Dr. 
Heiser,  recent  experiments  with  rats  fed  the  diets  of  two  sec- 
tions of  India  illustrate  vividly  that  "man  is  what  he  eats." 
One  group  of  rats,  fed  the  diet  of  the  strong,  hardy  people  of 
northern  India,  reached  an  age  equivalent  to  fifty  years  of 
human  life  without  disease.  A  second  group  of  rats,  fed  the 
diet  of  the  stunted  and  disease-ridden  people  of  southern  In- 
dia, were  subject  to  thirty-nine  diseases. 

Uninformed  Buying 

Modern  practices  have  processed  the  life-giving  and  health- 
giving  vitamins  and  minerals  out  of  our  foods.  Now  it  be- 
hooves the  scientists  to  restore  these  vitamins  and  minerals  to 
our  foods,  and  the  educators  to  teach  us  to  demand  these  ele- 
ments in  what  we  buy. 

Henry  Borsook  and  William  Huse,  in  their  Public  Affairs 
pamphlet  Vitamins  for  Health,  give  this  striking  example  of 
how  "uneducated  buying"  can  contribute  to  the  vitamin  de- 
ficiency of  the  nation: 

"Recently  a  Pasadena  child  brought  the  following  sixteen 
items  to  school  in  his  lunch  box  during  a  week:  bread,  butter, 
potato  chips,  chicken,  bacon,  mayonnaise,  apple,  banana,  fruit 
salad,  cooked  peaches,  strawberries,  raisins,  jelly,  tomato,  let- 
tuce, and  cake.  The  child's  diet  was  deficient  in  calcium  and 
phosphate.  It  was  adequate,  without  being  abundant,  in  vita- 
min A  and  B±. 

"Another  child  brought  only  six  items  in  the  course  of  the 


Food  for  Buoyant  Health  219 

week:  milk,  bread,  butter,  mixed  fruit  salad,  peanut  butter, 
and  carrots.  These  lunches  were  adequate  in  every  respect." 


Wasted  Minerals 

Not  only  are  we  being  educated  to  make  our  dollars  and 
points  go  further  at  the  market,  but  housewives  are  being 
taught  not  to  destroy  the  value  they  get  at  the  market  by 
wrong  handling  of  food.  We  would  laugh  at  a  savage  who, 
meeting  an  egg  for  the  first  time,  threw  away  the  inside  of  the 
egg  and  ate  the  shell.  But  far  too  many  cooks  have  overcooked 
vegetables,  thrown  the  minerals  and  the  annihilated  vitamins 
down  the  drain,  and  fed  their  family  the  husks  "daintily  ar- 
ranged for  taste  appeal." 

Miss  Nichols,  of  the  Food  Distribution  Administration,  says 
that  one  of  the  most  serious  forms  of  waste  is  "hidden  waste" 
of  the  vitamin  content  of  food  through  improper  handling — 
such  as  squeezing  orange  juice  the  night  before,  and  prepar- 
ing a  vegetable  salad  several  hours  before  eating,  and  cooking 
vegetables  in  too  much  water. 

An  article  in  the  magazine  You,  for  fall,  1941,  sums  up  the 
vital  necessity  of  the  mineral  content  of  the  body  thus: 

"You  are  very  watery.  Your  brains  are  79  per  cent  water, 
your  body  as  a  whole  is  70  per  cent  water.  It  is  the  other  30 
per  cent  of  ingredients  that  makes  all  the  difference  between 
a  puddle  and  a  person.  That  vital  30  per  cent  is  composed  of 
proteins,  fats,  minerals,  and  carbohydrates,  in  that  order. 

"Some  seven  pounds  of  you  consists  of  a  variety  of  metals 
ranging  from  salt  to  aluminum.  Nobody  has  yet  figured  out 
what  the  aluminum  is  for,  but  at  least  1 1  of  the  other  minerals 
are  as  necessary  to  you  as  the  steel  girders  are  to  a  sky 
scraper. 

"All  the  iron  in  your  body  would  make  only  five  carpet 
tacks,  but  without  it  you  would  promptly  smother  to  death, 


220  Miracles  Ahead! 

for  the  oxygen  you  breathe  could  not  be  taken  up  by  the 
body  cells. 

"We  often  waste  the  most  mineral-rich  parts  of  our  food. 
In  animal  foods,  the  minerals  are  most  abundant  in  organs, 
blood,  bone,  eggs  and  milk.  In  vegetables,  they  are  found 
mainly  in  the  brown  parts  of  grain  and  sugar,  the  peelings  of 
fruits  and  root  vegetables,  and  the  outer  green  leaves  of  let- 
tuce— all  of  which  are  usually  thrown  away.  And  since  the 
usable  inorganic  matter  in  food  dissolves  easily,  much  of  it  is 
thrown  out  in  the  water  in  which  our  vegetables  are  cooked. 

"Your  seven  pounds  of  minerals  might  not  mean  much  to 
the  defense  program,  but  they  mean  a  lot  to  you  in  health 
and  efficiency.  It's  worth  your  while  to  see  that  your  diet 
contains  enough  mineral-providing  foods,  properly  prepared." 

Yes,  we  can  become  much  more  educated  on  the  subject  of 
food,  to  the  advantage  of  both  our  pocketbooks  and  our 
health.  We  may  even  catch  up  with  the  five-thousand-year- 
old  knowledge  of  the  Chinese  on  the  value  of  the  soybean. 

Napoleon  Counted  on  Food 

Just  as  the  emergency  is  teaching  the  housewife  to  make 
her  market  basket  go  further  with  less  food  in  it,  so  this  war, 
as  earlier  ones,  will,  through  force  of  necessity,  teach  our 
food  processors  many  things.  Philip  H.  Van  Itallie,  in  his 
article  "Dehydrated  Foods"  in  the  summer  (1943)  issue  of 
Predictions  of  Things  to  Come,  tells  us  that  Napoleon  "early 
realized  that  the  discovery  of  a  foolproof  method  of  preserving 
food  from  spoilage  would  give  him  one  of  the  most  effective 
weapons  in  his  widespread  campaigns.  He  offered  a  prize  for 
the  best  solution  to  this  problem  common  to  all  warriors,  and 
Nicolas  Appert  was  thus  encouraged  to  give  the  world  his 
discovery  of  the  art  of  canning." 

Just  as  the  Napoleonic  Wars  brought  us  the  invention  of 


Food  for  Buoyant  Health  221 

canning,  the  first  World  War  encouraged  the  development 
of  frozen  foods,  and  dehydrated  foods  are  being  perfected  in 
World  War  II. 

Napoleon's  most  famous  military  observation  was  that  an 
army  travels  on  its  stomach.  Even  in  Napoleon's  time,  when  a 
good  day's  march  was  less  than  forty  miles,  the  problem  of 
food  supply  was  as  serious  as  the  problems  of  ordnance  and 
military  strategy. 

Today,  when  our  mechanized  Army  rolls  to  a  battle  front 
at  forty  miles  an  hour,  or  flies  to  a  battle  front  on  the  other 
side  of  the  world  at  several  hundred  miles  an  hour,  the  prob- 
lem of  "keeping  up  with  the  stomach"  taxes  our  production, 
our  processing,  our  transportation,  and  our  ingenuity  to  the 
full. 

Just  as  the  army  of  the  fighting  front  marches  to  battle  on 
its  stomach,  so  the  army  of  the  home  front  must  march  to 
victory  on  its  stomach.  A  nation  geared  to  speed  up  must  be 
nourished  to  sustain  that  tempo. 

Protein  Shortages  the  Most  Deadly 

When  the  end  of  fighting  comes,  the  people  will  have  a 
long  road  to  march — a  road  back  to  sanity,  peace,  and  justice. 
And  the  army  of  peace,  as  the  army  of  war,  must  march  on 
its  stomach.  For  peace  does  not  come  when  the  guns  are 
silenced.  Peace  does  not  come  so  long  as  the  specter  of  starva- 
tion stalks  the  land.  For  when  the  specter  of  starvation  stalks 
the  world,  the  specters  of  plague  and  pestilence  follow  in  its 
wake.  Dr.  Paul  R.  Cannon,  chairman  of  the  department  of 
pathology  of  the  University  of  Chicago,  has  spoken  grim 
words  of  warning  on  the  inevitable  aftermath  of  prolonged 
starvation. 

According  to  Dr.  Cannon,  the  link  which  brings  plague 
and  pestilence  in  the  wake  of  starvation  is  protein  deficiency. 


222  Miracles  Ahead! 

Our  resistance  to  disease  germs  depends  on  substances  called 
"antibodies."  These  antibodies  are  made  up  of  proteins.  When 
our  diets  are  short  of  meat,  cheese,  eggs,  and  other  proteins, 
our  bodies  are  short  of  antibodies. 

"If  the  war  goes  on  long  enough,"  says  Dr.  Cannon,  "pro- 
tein shortages  will  be  the  cause  of  Hitler's  defeat.  In  all 
lengthy  sieges  of  the  past,  the  combination  of  hunger,  famine 
and  disease  has  contributed  to  the  final  capitulation.  It  also 
may  play  the  determining  role  in  the  coming  siege  of  Hitler's 
European  fortress. 

"When  people  are  undergoing  severe  malnutrition,  neither 
slogans,  propaganda,  nor  the  fanfare  of  trumpets  can  induce 
them  to  struggle  hopelessly  against  overwhelming  odds." 

According  to  Dr.  Cannon,  the  food  intake  in  calories  in 
the  occupied  countries  is  already  far  below  standard — 35  per 
cent  below  in  Belgium,  and  yet  lower  in  Greece  and  Poland. 
The  death  rate  from  tuberculosis  is  climbing  in  all  the  occu- 
pied countries,  and  typhus  is  prevalent  in  Poland. 

Dehydrated  Foods  to  the  Fore 

The  problem  of  augmenting  the  food  supply  of  Europe  is 
a  big  problem  now,  and  it  will  be  a  far  bigger  problem  after 
the  war.  It  will  tax  production,  and  tax  transportation  even 
more  severely.  Two  of  the  most  effective  developments  in 
waging  the  fight  for  Victory  today  can  be  the  most  effective 
aids  in  waging  the  fight  for  peace — the  cargo  plane  and  de- 
hydrated foods. 

The  two  most  expensive  cargoes  America  has  shipped  to 
Europe — in  terms  of  value  given  for  space  required — are  air 
and  water.  Every  time  a  convoy  of  ten  ships  goes  out,  if  nine 
of  the  ships  are  filled  with  air  and  water,  only  one  can  carry 
food  and  the  weapons  of  war.  Yet  every  time  ten  shiploads 
of  "standard"  foods  are  sent  to  Europe,  nine-tenths  of  the 


Food  for  Buoyant  Health  223 

cargo  is  air  and  water.  Therefore,  it  is  the  processors  of  dehy- 
drated foods  who  are  helping  lick  the  submarine  menace  now, 
and  who  will  help  banish  the  menace  of  pestilence  and  plague 
tomorrow. 

R.  B.  Tobin,  formerly  the  dehydrated-food  expert  of  the 
Beech-Nut  Packing  Company,  has  stated  that  one  hundred 
cargo  planes,  loaded  with  dehydrated  foods,  could  supply  the 
daily  food  requirement  of  England.  For  example,  a  five-gallon 
container  of  dehydrated  beets,  when  prepared  for  the  table, 
will  serve  six  hundred  men.  Also,  says  Mr.  Tobin,  dehydra- 
tion has  a  further  advantage  of  not  destroying  the  vitamin 
content  of  food. 

"For  example,"  he  says,  "spinach  loses  75  per  cent  of  its 
vitamin  Bi  when  canned.  But  in  dehydrated  spinach,  the  vita- 
min Bi  is  preserved  almost  100  per  cent.  Canned  peas  lose  73 
per  cent  of  Bi  as  compared  to  a  loss  of  10  to  20  per  cent  in 
dehydrated  peas.  Studies  on  meat  show  that  there  was  less  loss 
of  vitamin  Bi  and  62  in  dehydrated  meat  than  in  the  canned 
form." 

Dehydration  removes  from  50  to  90  per  cent  of  the  bulk 
from  food,  and  compression,  or  smashing  out  of  the  air  under 
tremendous  pressure,  removes  from  30  to  70  per  cent  of  the 
remaining  bulk.  A  compressed  brick  of  potatoes  the  size  of  a 
pack  of  cigarettes,  when  prepared  for  the  table,  will  serve 
four.  A  package  the  size  of  a  shoe  box  will  serve  one  hundred 
people. 

Dehydrated  foods  were  introduced  in  the  first  World  War. 
They  did  not  "take."  Any  resemblance  to  the  original  flavor 
of  the  food  was  purely  coincidental.  The  soldiers  took  one 
look  at  the  pasty  gray  mess  that  was  called  potatoes,  and  de- 
cided that  Sherman  was  right.  They  protested  loud  and  long. 
When  dehydrated  foods  were  proposed  in  World  War  II,  the 
Army  eyed  the  subject  askance.  But  when  the  shipping  short- 
age became  acute  the  Army  decided  to  try  again,  and  the 


224  Miracles  Ahead! 

processors  of  dehydrated  foods  were  urged  to  try  a  little 
harder.  They  did,  and  with  happy  results.  Dehydrated  pota- 
toes today,  when  "reconstituted"  and  served  to  the  soldiers, 
are  a  far  cry  from  the  sorry  spuds  of  the  first  World 
War. 

One  of  the  most  interesting  packets  of  dehydrated  food 
prepared  for  our  soldiers  today  is  the  U  ration,  a  packet  to 
provide  balanced  meals  for  a  group  of  men  out  on  maneuvers 
which  take  them  far  from  the  mess  hall.  The  list  of  foods 
available  in  the  U-ration  packet  give  us  some  idea  of  the 
striking  range  of  foods  now  available  in  dehydrated  form: 
tomato  juice,  whole- wheat  cereal,  sliced  bacon,  biscuits,  lem- 
onade, coffee,  bean  soup,  roast  beef,  quick-cooking  rice,  hard 
candy,  meat  and  vegetable  stew,  dried  prunes,  apricot  spread, 
root  beer,  gum  drops,  and  canned  butter. 

The  canned  butter  provided  in  the  U  ration  is  the  combina- 
tion of  butter  and  hydrogenated  vegetable  fat  which  has  been 
developed  by  Kraft.  The  mixture  will  not  melt  at  120  degrees, 
nor  become  rancid  in  tropic  heat. 

Other  foods  now  being  successfully  dehydrated  are:  car- 
rots, beets,  corn,  potatoes,  spinach,  celery,  asparagus,  bananas, 
pears,  cranberries,  peaches,  grapes,  and  raspberries. 

For  the  duration  most  of  the  supply  of  commercially  de- 
hydrated foods  will  be  used  by  the  Army.  But  already  dehy- 
drators  are  on  the  market  for  home  use. 

The  Public  Service  Company  of  Chicago  has  given  us  the 
data  on  a  simple  method  of  home  dehydration  without  special 
equipment: 

"The  equipment  needed  is  a  wood  frame  with  some  ordi- 
nary cotton  curtain  netting  stretched  over  it.  This  is  placed 
on  top  the  metal  rack  which  is  standard  equipment  in  gas 
ovens. 

"First,  steam  vegetables  to  be  dehydrated,  using  a  tightly 
covered  container  and  suspending  vegetables  above  rapidly 


Food  for  Buoyant  Health  225 

boiling  water.  Second,  remove  skin  from  vegetables  or  fruit. 
Third,  cut  vegetables  into  thin  slices.  (This  does  not  apply 
to  beans  or  leafy  vegetables.)  Fourth,  put  the  slices  on  the 
cloth  tray  and  place  in  the  gas  oven.  Bring  the  oven  tempera- 
ture to  150  degrees,  leaving  door  open  to  permit  air  circula- 
tion. The  vegetables  will  be  completely  dehydrated  in  four 
and  one-half  to  six  hours. 

"Vegetables  are  reduced  to  about  one-fourth  to  one-ninth 
their  original  size.  They  may  be  stored  for  future  use  in  glass 
jars.  When  wanted,  they  are  soaked  in  water — ordinarily 
about  three  hours — and  then  the  food  is  cooked  as  desired." 

Van  Itallie  says  this  of  the  food  problem  today,  the  bigger 
one  of  tomorrow,  and  the  part  dehydration  may  play  in  the 
solution: 

"If  the  war  lasts  several  years  more,  and  we  are  among 
those  who  think  it  will,  the  quantities  of  food  which  America 
will  be  called  upon  to  conserve  by  all  available  means  will 
become  so  staggering  that  every  housewife  will  have  to  do  her 
bit  to  reduce  the  load  on  the  country's  food  preserving 
facilities. 

"We  have  only  just  begun  to  get  a  taste  of  it.  No  more 
canned  pork  and  beans.  The  beans  will  keep  indefinitely 
when  dried,  and  to  cook  them  is  up  to  the  individual  house- 
wife. When  canned  food  rationing  comes  upon  us,  there  is 
bound  to  be  a  trend  toward  an  even  greater  consumption  of 
fresh  foods,  unless  transportation  facilities  become  so  con- 
gested that  there  is  not  enough  truck  or  railroad  space  to  ac- 
commodate the  bulk  of  fresh  foods.  Should  this  condition 
arise  and  the  present  scarcity  of  metals  continue,  then  we  will 
all  be  eating  dehydrated  foods,  for  these  are  the  best  answer 
to  transportation  shortages.  They  occupy  a  minimum  of  bulk 
and  require  a  minimum  of  steel  and  tin.  In  fact,  for  domestic 
consumption,  dehydrated  foods  can  be  packed  in  moisture- 
proof,  cellophane-lined  cardboard  containers.  For  export, 


226  Miracles  Ahead! 

however,  tin  cans  will  probably  continue  to  be  preferred, 
since  determined  rats  make  short  work  of  cardboard. 

"There  are  130  million  of  us  in  this  country.  Right  now  we 
are  probably  feeding  200  million.  Before  the  war  is  over,  we 
may  be  feeding  three  starving  people  abroad  for  every  Ameri- 
can. And  after  the  war  it  will  take  years  to  undo  the  malnu- 
trition and  starvation  now  stalking  this  globe.  As  we  see  it, 
the  dehydrated  food  industry,  now  coming  of  age,  is  destined 
to  become  America's  next  frontier  of  opportunity." 

The  Mechanical  Cow 

Another  development  is  furnishing  food  to  our  fighting 
man  today  and  will  furnish  a  most  vital  food  to  the  under- 
nourished millions  of  the  postwar  world.  The  invention  is  the 
"mechanical  cow."  The  "mechanical  cow,"  which  is  furnish- 
ing fresh  milk  on  far-flung  battlefields  and  on  ships  long  at 
sea,  works  on  the  same  principle  as  the  plasma  bank,  which 
furnished  blood  for  transfusions  at  outposts  far  from  blood 
donors  and  blood  banks.  In  the  preparation  of  blood  plasma 
the  blood  is  dehydrated  and  the  flaky  powder  that  results  can 
be  shipped  anywhere  and  kept  indefinitely.  When  it  is  wanted 
for  use,  only  sterile  water  is  needed  to  turn  it  into  blood  again. 
Milk  for  the  "mechanical  cow"  is  broken  into  fats  and  solids. 
The  solids  are  dehydrated.  The  fats  are  preserved  in  accord- 
ance with  recent  methods  for  keeping  butter  fresh  in  any 
climate  and  for  indefinite  periods  of  time.  The  milk  pow- 
der and  the  butter  can  be  shipped  anywhere  in  the  world. 
When  it  is  wanted  for  use,  it  is  only  necessary  to  add  water 
and  to  whirl  the  mixture  of  butter,  milk  powder,  and  water 
in  a  machine — and,  presto,  fresh  milk  is  ready  to  serve.  The 
product  is  a  far  advance  over  any  previous  development  in 
milk  powders  or  dried  milk.  Not  only  has  the  "mechanical 
cow"  made  fresh  milk  available  in  unexpected  places,  but  it 


Food  for  Buoyant  Health  227 

has  given  our  fighting  men  that  favorite  American  dish — ice 
cream. 

When  we  consider  the  vital  part  milk  can  play  in  curing 
the  evils  of  malnutrition,  and  consider  the  availability  of  fresh 
milk  thus  made  possible  in  any  corner  of  the  globe,  we  rate 
the  "mechanical  cow"  along  with  the  dehydrated  and  proc- 
essed foods  of  tomorrow  as  true  bringers  of  a  miracle  world.1 

1  Anheuser-Busch  Inc.,  of  St.  Louis,  announced  on  August  6,  1943,  the 
production  of  synthetic  beefsteak  from  a  high  protein  type  of  yeast.  In  mak- 
ing the  synthetic  steak,  yeast  is  mixed  with  water  and  molasses.  This  mixture 
is  treated  with  ammonia,  which  converts  the  yeast  to  protein.  During  the 
process  air  is  stirred  into  the  substance  and  12  hours  later  the  "steaks"  are 
ready.  This  product  is  being  delivered  to  the  Army  and  the  Lend-Lease 
Administration,  and  after  the  war  it  will  help  put  cheap,  vitamin-filled  food 
on  postwar  tables.  It  has  the  same  amount  of  nutrition  as  steak  and  can  be 
compared  to  beefsteak  so  far  as  value  is  concerned. 


XV 

MEDICINE   LOOKS   AHEAD 

THE  MEDICAL  PROGRESS  of  the  future  is  heralded  by  the  amaz- 
ing accomplishments  of  wartime  medicine. 

Putting  it  statistically,  look  what  happened  to  the  wounded 
in  the  early  period  of  the  war. 

More  than  97  per  cent  of  Navy  and  Marine  wounded  from 
Pearl  Harbor  to  March  31,  1943,  have  recovered,  according 
to  the  Office  of  War  Information.  Of  all  Navy  and  Marine 
personnel  wounded,  only  2.6  per  cent  died  subsequently. 
Fifty-three  per  cent  were  returned  to  duty.  Still  under  treat- 
ment, as  of  March  31,  were  43.5  per  cent.  Invalided  from 
service  were  0.9  per  cent. 

Incomplete  data  on  our  Army  casualties  up  to  December, 
1942,  showed  a  fatality  rate  of  less  than  4  per  cent  compared 
with  7.7  per  cent  in  the  first  World  War.  In  the  Solomons 
fighting,  deaths  from  abdominal  wounds  were  less  than  5  per 
cent.  In  the  first  World  War  80  per  cent  of  all  abdominal 
wounds  were  fatal.  In  the  original  occupation  of  North  Africa 
the  only  deaths  were  those  of  men  killed  outright  or  so  badly 
wounded  that  nothing  could  have  saved  them.  Four  hundred 
soldiers  who  were  badly  burned  by  flaming  oil  during  the 
landings  were  given  blood-plasma  transfusions.  All  but  six 
were  saved. 

New  Medical  Kit 

When  "Johnny  Doughboy"  gets  his  gun  he  also  gets  in- 
oculations to  make  him  immune  to  diseases  which  killed 

228 


Medicine  Looks  Ahead  229 

more  men  than  bullets  killed  in  other  wars.  He  is  fortified  by 
vitamins  C  and  K,  the  former  to  give  quicker  healing  power 
and  the  latter  to  insure  swifter  coagulation  of  the  blood  in 
case  of  wounds.  Then  he  is  given  "weapons"  to  fight  infec- 
tion and  is  taught  how  to  use  them. 

Each  man  has  fastened  to  his  belt,  easily  removable,  a  first- 
aid  packet,  a  package  of  sulfadiazine  tablets — an  improved 
sulfa  drug — and  sulfanilamide  powder.  If  the  soldier  is  hit  he 
tries  to  take  the  sulfadiazine  tablets.  A  special  plastic  container 
releases  them  into  his  hand  one  at  a  time,  so  that  the  hurt  man 
will  not  spill  them  on  the  ground.  He  also  dusts  sulfa  powder 
in  his  wound,  and  uses  the  first-aid  packet. 

The  Hospital  Corps  at  the  Front 

Generally,  however,  a  hospital  corpsman  will  have  reached 
the  soldier  before  he  has  had  time  to  use  his  first-aid  packet. 
Long  experience  has  taught  the  Army  and  Navy  doctors  just 
how  many  corpsmen  to  assign  to  each  group  of  fighting  men. 
Often  a  corpsman  is  beside  a  wounded  soldier  a  minute  or  two 
after  he  is  hit. 

The  corpsman  carries  a  larger  kit  of  supplies  and  admin- 
isters quickly  to  the  soldier,  giving  him  an  injection  of  a  drug 
which  stops  pain  almost  instantly  and  increases  his  ability  to 
withstand  the  ordeal.  This  drug  is  carried  in  a  new-type  hypo- 
dermic which  is  marvelously  simple  and  speedy  to  operate. 
The  needle  is  already  sterilized  for  instant  use.  After  treat- 
ing the  soldier  the  corpsman  ties  a  tag  to  his  belt  telling  what 
type  of  treatment  was  given,  fixes  a  bit  of  gauze  to  a  bayonet 
or  stick  to  mark  the  place  where  the  soldier  is,  and  then  goes 
forward  to  help  some  other  man. 

Attracted  by  the  white  cloth,  the  litter  bearers  are  next  on 
the  scene.  They  are  not  ordinary  privates,  picked  at  random 
to  aid  their  buddies.  They  are  trained  men  who  know  how  to 


230  Miracles  Ahead! 

administer  first  aid,  how  to  lift  a  wounded  man  to  avoid  fur- 
ther injury,  how  to  protect  a  fracture  with  splints.  They 
have  even  amputated  a  leg  or  arm  in  order  to  save  a  life.  Fur- 
thermore, these  men  work  fast.  In  a  few  minutes  a  wounded 
man  may  be  picked  up  and  carried  to  a  battalion  hospital  unit 
four  hundred  to  one  thousand  yards  back.  The  fallen  man 
usually  is  picked  up  in  less  time  than  it  takes  an  ambulance  to 
reach  a  street  accident  in  one  of  our  large  cities. 

The  battalion  aid  station  is  a  miniature  hospital  on  wheels 
which  goes  wherever  the  soldier  goes.  It  is  staffed  by  two 
physicians  and  assistants,  and  has  operating  instruments,  anes- 
thetics, sulfanilamide,  opiates  to  relieve  pain,  hot  drinks,  and, 
most  important,  blood  plasma  to  combat  shock  and  loss  of 
blood. 

Blood  Plasma 

One  of  the  greatest  medical  advances  in  the  past  twenty 
years  is  the  use  of  blood  plasma  in  transfusions.  Until  a  few 
years  ago  a  blood  donor  had  to  be  matched  with  the  person 
receiving  the  blood.  If  the  two  did  not  agree  in  type,  clots 
were  almost  sure  to  form — with  fatal  results.  Now,  however, 
plasma  is  used.  This  is  the  amber-colored  liquid  that  remains 
after  the  red  and  white  cells  have  been  whirled  out,  as  milk 
and  cream  are  separated  in  a  dairy,  or  allowed  to  settle.  The 
water  content  of  the  plasma  then  is  removed,  and  it  is  reduced 
to  a  dry  yellow  powder.  This  powder  can  be  preserved,  in 
vacuum,  indefinitely  and  it  can  be  restored  to  its  natural  state 
simply  by  putting  the  water  back  through  the  addition  of  dis- 
tilled water. 

The  use  of  plasma  saves  time,  and  time  is  all-important  in 
treating  wounded  men.  No  longer  do  we  have  to  worry  about 
blood  types,  because  the  substances  that  cause  clots  when 
blood  types  are  mixed  occur  in  the  cells  and  not  in  the  plasma. 


Medicine  Looks  Ahead  231 

Nor  do  we  have  to  bring  the  soldier  to  the  blood  donor;  the 
transfusion  can  go  to  him,  and  halt  shock  before  it  can  get 
started.  Officers  say  they  have  found  that  in  bad  burns  it  is 
the  plasma  that  is  lost.  By  immediate  transfusions  the  liquid 
can  be  restored  before  death  occurs.  "You  can  see  the  impor- 
tance of  this  at  once  when  you  realize  that  an  overwhelming 
percentage  of  the  injuries  incurred  by  the  men  in  the  armored 
corps  are  burns,"  said  Major  Richard  D.  Mudd,  head  of  the 
department  of  Field  Medicine  and  Surgery,  Carlisle  Barracks, 
Pennsylvania. 

The  sulfa  drugs,  which  keep  down  infection,  and  blood 
plasma,  which  fortifies  a  wounded  man  against  the  shock  and 
puts  new  life  into  his  veins,  are  perfect  team  mates  to  protect 
our  fighting  men  now,  and  our  working  men  and  women  in 
peacetime. 

Mobile  X-Ray  Unit 

The  battalion  aid  station,  where  the  wounded  man  may 
receive  the  first  of  several  plasma  transfusions,  may  be  com- 
pared with  the  emergency  room  in  an  ordinary  hospital.  It 
provides  swift,  expert,  lifesaving  treatment  and  surgery.  One 
of  its  mobile  units,  to  which  many  a  soldier  owes  his  life,  is 
the  mobile  X-ray  machine.  In  the  first  World  War  these  ma- 
chines were  huge,  clumsy  affairs,  not  easily  moved.  The  pres- 
ent battlefield  X  ray  can  go  to  the  front  with  the  soldier. 
Built  so  compactly  that  it  can  be  fitted  into  three  small  trucks, 
it  weighs  only  three  hundred  and  ninety-nine  pounds  and  can 
be  assembled  in  thirty  minutes. 

The  soldier  does  not  have  to  wait  until  he  reaches  a  base 
hospital  before  X-ray  pictures  can  be  taken  of  his  injury.  This 
can  be  done  an  hour  or  so  after  the  wound  is  received,  and 
treatment  begun  immediately.  Besides  taking  X-ray  pictures, 
the  machine  also  has  a  fluoroscopic  screen — through  which 


232  Miracles  Ahead! 

the  physician  can  examine  hidden  injuries.  It  permits  a  physi- 
cian to  locate  a  bullet,  shell  fragments,  bits  of  masonry,  and 
other  foreign  bodies  within  a  minute  after  the  wounded  man 
is  placed  under  the  machine. 

The  soldier  usually  remains  at  the  battalion  aid  station  a 
day  or  less  and  then  is  taken  by  ambulance  jeep,  or  other  con- 
veyance, back  to  the  collecting  station,  which  also  is  mobile 
and  can  be  brought  up  near  the  front  lines.  Here  a  complete 
record  of  the  injury  is  made,  with  recommendations  of  the 
doctors  who  have  examined  and  treated  the  soldier. 

From  the  collecting  stations  the  more  seriously  wounded 
are  evacuated  to  field  hospitals  or  evacuation  hospitals.  These 
are  usually  five  to  seven  miles  back  of  the  battle  line.  But,  as 
they  are  highly  mobile,  they  can  be  brought  up  to  the  front. 
They  travel  on  six  wheels,  can  move  rapidly  over  soft  or 
rough  ground,  and  are  ready  for  instant  use.  These  units  have 
the  most  modern  medical  and  surgical  equipment  and  are 
staffed  by  expert  surgeons,  including  specialists  for  all  kinds 
of  injuries.  Compound  fractures  (in  which  bones  are  broken 
and  flesh  also  is  torn)  are  cleaned,  sprinkled  with  sulfa  drugs, 
and  the  leg  or  arm  is  then  encased  in  plaster. 

The  "Closed  Treatment"  for  Fractures 

This  revolutionary  "closed  treatment"  of  fractures  was  de- 
veloped by  two  surgeons  who  did  not  like  the  old  method  of 
dressing  the  wound — draining  it  and  constantly  washing  it 
with  antiseptics.  The  method  worked — but  not  often  enough 
to  suit  them.  One  of  these  surgeons  was  Winnett  Orr,  an 
American.  As  a  military  surgeon  with  the  American  Army  in 
France  during  the  first  World  War,  Orr  had  the  problem  o 
bringing  home  many  men  with  compound  fractures.  He  de- 
cided to  use  plaster  casts  to  protect  them  on  the  rough  voyage 
home. 


Medicine  Looks  Ahead  233 

In  cases  where  the  fracture  wound  was  healing,  Orr  en- 
cased it  in  plaster.  But  in  cases  where  the  wound  was  still 
infected,  he  made  a  plaster  cast  with  a  sort  of  window  which 
allowed  him  to  dress  the  wound  daily.  When  he  got  home  and 
began  to  take  off  the  casts,  Orr  discovered  something  strange. 
The  closed  casts,  which  should  have  caused  trouble  because 
they  didn't  permit  regular  dressing  of  the  wound,  appeared 
to  have  speeded  the  healing  of  the  wounds.  The  legs  and  arms 
encased  in  casts  with  windows  for  daily  dressing  and  drainage 
did  not  show  much  improvement. 

Orr  thought  this  all  over  and  wrote  a  paper  which  sug- 
gested that  leaving  the  wound  undisturbed,  and  letting  nature 
take  its  course,  was  more  important  than  daily  treatments. 
No  one  paid  much  attention  to  the  paper,  but  Orr  began  to 
use  his  method  and  it  worked  better  than  any  other.  His 
patients,  and  curious  doctors,  were  annoyed  by  the  overpow- 
ering smell  of  the  casts  after  a  week  or  two.  Surely  the  leg  or 
arm  must  be  rotting  away  under  the  cast.  But  when  Orr  inves- 
tigated he  found  that  the  wound  was  healing  rapidly.  It  was 
not,  however,  until  Orr  used  his  cast  treatment  successfully 
on  stubborn  osteomyelitis  cases  (bone  infections)  that  a  num- 
ber of  surgeons  began  to  follow  his  methods. 

Several  thousand  miles  away,  in  Spain,  Jose  Trueta,  chief 
surgeon  of  the  General  Hospital  of  Catalonia,  was  using  Orr's 
method.  When  the  Spanish  Civil  War  broke  out,  Trueta's 
hospital  served  as  a  base  hospital  for  the  Spanish  Republican 
Army  and  he  soon  was  busy  on  fracture  cases  from  the  front 
lines  and  the  bomb-shattered  buildings  of  Barcelona.  He  cut 
away  the  dead  and  dying  tissue  from  hundreds  of  shattered 
legs  and  arms,  aligned  the  fragments  of  bone,  cleaned  the 
wounds,  packed  them  with  gauze,  and  put  them  in  plaster 
casts.  When  the  odor  of  the  casts  got  too  strong  he  took 
them  off,  cleaned  the  already  healing  wounds,  and  put  fresh 
casts  on. 


234  Miracles  Ahead! 

When  the  war  ended,  word  of  Trueta's  remarkable  suc- 
cess spread  far  and  wide.  Trueta,  who  had  fled  to  London, 
gradually  won  the  support  of  British  surgeons,  and  when 
World  War  II  came  they  lost  no  time  in  adopting  the  Trueta- 
Orr  method.  No  one  worried  any  more  about  the  smelly  casts. 
Fractures  make  up  about  60  per  cent  of  all  war  injuries,  and 
those  casts  have  worked  with  a  death  rate  of  less  than  one 
per  cent. 

The  Base  Hospital 

Farthest  back  are  the  great  general,  or  base,  hospitals.  These 
are  not  mobile  and  are  far  removed  from  the  battle  area,  some- 
times several  hundred  miles.  The  general  hospitals  have  one 
thousand  beds  or  more,  and  are  the  equal  of  the  most  elabo- 
rate city  hospitals.  The  men  may  remain  here  until  they  are 
entirely  cured  and  returned  to  duty,  or  they  may  be  sent  to 
general  and  convalescent  hospitals  in  the  United  States — huge 
well-equipped  and  well-staffed  institutions  maintained  in  vari- 
ous parts  of  the  country  by  the  Army  and  Navy. 

"Often  the  trip  to  the  home  hospital  is  made  by  ambulance 
plane,"  states  the  OWI  report  on  Recovery  of  American 
Wounded.  "There  have  been  cases  of  men  wounded  on  some 
distant  battlefield  several  thousand  miles  away  reaching  this 
country  faster  than  the  report  of  their  wounding;  of  a  cheer- 
ful 'Hi,  Mom!'  over  long-distance  telephone  informing  a 
mother  of  her  son's  safe  return. 

"One  soldier,  with  a  severe  abdominal  wound,  was  brought 
by  ambulance  from  Egypt  in  72  hours,  and  is  now  recovering 
rapidly  in  an  Army  hospital.  Others  have  been  flown  from 
the  Far  East,  Europe,  India,  Africa.  The  fact  that  a  man 
knows  he  can  be  home  in  a  couple  of  days  from  almost  any 
part  of  the  world  is  a  tremendous  morale-builder." 

Pointing  out  that  in  this  war  there  are  no  rigid  and  distinct 


Medicine  Looks  Ahead  235 

battle  lines,  the  OWI  says  this  requires  that  our  medical-care 
organization  be  ready  to  change  on  a  moment's  notice.  That 
is  why  our  medical  officers  are  trained  to  adapt  themselves  to 
all  conditions,  and  is  the  reason  for  our  mobile  hospital  units. 

Mobile  Bacteriological  Laboratory 

Among  the  other  mobile  equipment  are  a  bacteriological 
laboratory,  a  miniature  health  department  on  wheels,  which 
tests  water,  food,  and  determines  the  nature  of  any  disease 
which  may  attack  the  troops;  the  traveling  optical  laboratory, 
one  of  the  newest  and  most  interesting  of  the  mobile  units, 
which  can  supply  a  soldier  with  new  glasses  in  a  few  hours 
after  his  are  broken  or  lost;  the  mobile  dental  unit,  with  an 
easily  moved  dental  chair  and  all  equipment  necessary  to  care 
for  the  teeth  of  our  fighting  men;  mobile  water  purifiers, 
which  go  with  troops  to  foreign  territory  and  purify  all  the 
water  drunk  by  our  men — regardless  of  any  guarantee  of  its 
harmlessness. 

Ambulance  trains  are  used  to  transfer  men  from  evacua- 
tion points  to  base  hospitals  abroad.  The  first  of  these  trains 
was  turned  over  to  us  by  the  British  under  Lend-Lease.  These 
trains  have  six  ward  cars,  a  car  for  sitting-up  patients,  a 
pharmacy  car  and  other  cars  for  storing  materials,  as  well  as 
operating  rooms  and  special  compartments  for  psychiatric 
cases. 

"Month  after  month  of  work,  research  and  experiment  have 
gone  into  development  of  our  Army  and  Navy  medical  equip- 
ment," reports  the  OWI.  "This  has  resulted  in  such  inventions 
as  folding  litters  and  folding  leg  and  arm  splints,  which  may 
be  packed  in  small  spaces  for  use  in  battle  areas;  the  jungle 
kit,  carried  by  men  on  duty  in  the  tropics,  containing  appara- 
tus for  counteracting  snakebite,  various  kinds  of  drugs  from 
aspirin  to  atabrin  (for  malaria),  salt  tablets  to  prevent  heat 


236  Miracles  Ahead! 

cramps,  and  a  liquid  which,  spread  on  the  skin,  keeps  insects 
away;  the  arctic  kit,  for  troops  in  northern  countries,  with 
materials  for  the  prevention  and  cure  of  freezing  and  frost 
bite,  and  'multi-vitamins/  to  keep  men  strong  and  healthy 
even  on  limited  rations." 

Since  this  war  is  being  fought  in  many  parts  of  the  world, 
doctors  assigned  to  troops  in  these  areas  are  skilled  in  keeping 
men  fit  in  extreme  temperatures.  Physicians  assigned  to  tank 
corps  are  expert  in  treating  men  subjected  to  terrific  noise  and 
heat;  doctors  attached  to  submarine  squadrons  study  reactions 
to  pressure;  doctors  specially  trained  in  the  effects  of  high 
altitudes  are  assigned  to  aircraft  units.  If  a  doctor  is  assigned 
to  a  ski-troop  section,  he  must  be  able  to  handle  skis  himself. 
If  he  is  sent  to  a  paratroop  outfit,  he  must  know  how  to  use  a 
parachute.  He  jumps  with  his  men  and  floats  heavier  pieces  of 
medical  equipment  down  by  separate  parachute.  Wherever 
our  men  fight,  they  are  never  far  from  the  best  of  medical 
care. 

The  Navy's  Hospital  Ships 

The  success  of  a  certain  hospital  ship,  says  the  OWI,  is  one 
of  the  Navy's  proudest  achievements.  During  an  extended 
period  beginning  with  the  Solomon  Islands  offensive  in  Aug- 
ust, 1942,  this  floating  hospital  cared  for  4,039  patients — 
men  wounded  by  bullets,  shell  fragments;  men  terribly 
burned,  lacerated.  Among  these  4,039  cases,  only  seven  deaths 
occurred — a  mortality  rate  of  0.18  per  cent! 

The  Navy's  hospital  ships  correspond  to  the  mobile  surgical 
units  that  serve  our  land  forces.  These  ships  are  staffed  by 
expert  surgeons  and  doctors,  and  their  equipment  is  the  equal 
of  that  in  the  best  city  hospital.  They  are  used  not  only  by 
naval  forces  but  by  land  forces.  They  may  move  in  close  to 
land  so  that  wounded  men  can  be  transferred  to  them  from 


Medicine  Looks  Ahead  237 

field  hospitals.  Battleships  and  aircraft  carriers  have  their  own 
hospital  units,  all  complete.  Smaller  war  vessels  may  depend 
on  the  hospital  ship. 

Special  boats  are  used  by  the  Navy  to  rescue  men  from 
sinking  vessels  or  aircraft  disasters  over  water.  When  an  air- 
craft goes  down,  fast  rescue  craft  which  skim  along  shallow 
creeks  to  the  scene  bring  survivors  ashore  at  speeds  of  fifty 
to  sixty  miles  an  hour. 

In  its  report  on  care  of  the  wounded,  the  OWI  pointed  out 
that  "it  does  not  take  into  account  other  safeguards  for  the 
well-being  of  service  men;  how  we  rehabilitate  wounded  men 
in  our  great  Army  and  Navy  hospitals  in  this  country,  how 
plastic  surgery  restores  mutilated  faces  so  perfectly  that  only 
a  physician  can  be  certain  any  change  from  the  original  has 
taken  place;  how  paralyzed  limbs  are  returned  to  full  useful- 
ness by  massage,  exercise,  and  treatment  by  special  apparatus; 
how  a  method  replaces  skin  destroyed  by  burns,  how  therapy 
brings  back  to  normal  minds  which  have  not  withstood  the 
shock  of  war,  brings  them  back  so  completely  that  often  they 
are  stronger  than  before  their  brief  retreat." 

The  Magical  Sulfa  Drugs 

Army  and  Navy  doctors,  and  research  workers  in  labora- 
tories throughout  the  nation,  are  searching  ceaselessly  for  new 
weapons  against  infection  and  disease.  We  have  reason  to  feel 
that  in  the  future  the  peacetime  conquests  of  medicine  will 
save  many  more  lives  than  the  war  takes. 

In  his  book  Behind  the  Sulfa  Drugs:  A  Short  History  of 
Chemotherapy,  Dr.  lago  Galdston  writes:1 

"The  sulfonamide  compounds  have  proved  to  be  the  great- 
est achievement  in  therapy,  with  the  competence  to  save  more 

1  Galdston,  lago,  Behind  the  Sulfa  Drugs.  New  York,  D.  Appleton- 
Century  Co.,  Inc.,  1943. 


238  Miracles  Ahead! 

lives  than  any  other  group  of  agents  employed  in  the  treat- 
ment of  disease." 

Dr.  Paul  Ehrlich,  the  German-Jewish  genius,  found  that 
germs  absorbed  coal-tar  dyes  and  became  visible  under  the 
microscope.  He  hoped  to  discover  a  dye  that  would  not  only 
color  the  germs  but  kill  them.  In  1910  Dr.  Ehrlich  perfected 
the  arsenical  compound  salvarsan  ("606") — the  "magic  bul- 
let" that  cures  syphilis,  and  the  first  of  the  great  modern 
chemical  agents  for  the  war  against  disease. 

Two  years  earlier,  in  1908,  P.  Gelmo,  a  young  student  at 
the  University  of  Vienna,  described  the  preparation  of  a  coal- 
tar  compound,  sulfanilamide,  in  a  paper  for  his  doctor's  de- 
gree. Little  more  is  known  of  this  trail  blazer.  A  year  later, 
chemists  of  the  I.G.  Farbenindustrie,  German  dye  trust,  dis- 
covered that  sulfanilamide  could  be  united  with  other  chemi- 
cals to  make  colors  exceptionally  fast.  This  dye  combined 
strongly  with  the  proteins  in  wool  and  silk.  Some  scientists 
ventured  the  opinion  that  sulfanilamide  might  have  an  equal 
affinity  for  the  proteins  of  parasites  causing  disease,  but  little 
was  done  along  this  line  for  several  years. 

In  1935  Dr.  Gerhard  Domagk,  a  German  pathologist,  pub- 
lished the  results  of  experiments  with  prontosil,  a  brick-red 
powder.  Scientists  in  other  countries  soon  discovered  that 
prontosil  was  a  combination  of  sulfanilamide  and  a  red  dye, 
and  that  sulfanilamide  alone  did  the  work. 

"The  British,"  writes  David  Dietz,  Scripps-Howard  science 
editor,  "gave  the  task  of  testing  the  new  drug  to  one  of  their 
most  distinguished  men,  Dr.  Leonard  Colebrook  of  Queen 
Charlotte's  Hospital  in  London.  He  was  the  leading  authority 
on  childbed  fever,  which  sets  in  so  frequently  after  childbirth 
and  until  then  had  proved  fatal  in  one  out  of  every  four 
cases. 

"In  1936  Dr.  Colebrook  treated  64  cases  with  the  new  drug 
and  saved  the  lives  of  61  mothers.  Sulfanilamide  had  cut  the 


Medicine  Looks  Ahead  239 

mortality  rate  from  25  to  less  than  5  per  cent.  He  made  his 
report  in  London  that  summer  at  the  International  Congress 
of  Microbiology.  In  the  audience  was  Dr.  Perrin  Long  of 
Johns  Hopkins  Hospital,  who  hurried  home  to  Baltimore  and 
began  to  try  the  drug,  first  on  mice  and  then  on  men. 

"America  first  became  aware  of  sulfanilamide  just  before 
the  end  of  1936,  when  Dr.  Long  was  called  in  to  use  the  new 
drug  on  the  son  of  the  President — Franklin  D.  Roosevelt  Jr., 
then  a  student  at  Harvard.  Young  Roosevelt  had  been  taken 
to  a  Boston  hospital  with  a  "strep"  throat.  From  that  time  on 
sulfanilamide  and  its  derivatives  have  passed  from  one  success 
to  another." 

Sulfanilamide — the  "mother  drug" — proved  successful  in 
the  fighting  of  thirty  different  bacterial  diseases.  The  list  of 
diseases  that  it  will  combat  reads  like  the  label  on  a  patent- 
medicine  bottle,  but,  unlike  the  patent  medicines,  the  sulfa 
drug  really  worked.  It  did,  however,  have  toxic  effects  on 
patients — nausea,  dizziness,  fever.  So  scientists  analyzed  sul- 
fanilamide and  sought  to  produce  derivatives  that  would  kill 
germs  and  still  not  harm  the  body. 

Sulfanilamide  is  a  complex  molecule  of  carbon,  hydrogen, 
nitrogen,  oxygen,  and  sulphur.  By  adding  other  molecules  of 
carbon,  hydrogen,  oxygen,  and  sulphur,  chemists  obtained  the 
various  derivatives  of  sulfanilamide. 

Sulf apyridine  proved  to  be  more  effective  than  the  "mother 
drug"  in  fighting  certain  types  of  pneumonia  and  gonorrhea. 
Its  toxic  effects  were  about  equal  to  sulfanilamide,  but  since  it 
worked  faster  it  could  be  used  with  less  danger  to  the  patient. 

Sulfathiazole  has  been  equally  effective  against  most  dis- 
eases and  is  far  less  toxic  than  the  other  two  drugs.  Peritonitis, 
the  deadly  infection  resulting  from  a  burst  appendix,  has  lost 
its  terror  because  of  sulfathiazole. 

Sulfadiazine  appears  to  be  far  less  toxic  than  the  others  and 
much  more  powerful  as  a  germ  killer.  It  can  even  be  used  to 


240  Miracles  Ahead! 

clear  up  toxic  conditions  resulting  from  the  use  of  the  other 
sulfa  drugs.  Sulfadiazine  also  is  proving  highly  successful  in 
both  military  and  civilian  life  as  a  treatment  for  burns.  It  can 
be  sprayed  directly  on  the  burns,  and  acts  swiftly  to  relieve 
the  pain.  The  drug  leaves  a  soft,  flexible  scar;  speeds  the 
growth  of  new  skin;  and  has  none  of  the  harmful  properties 
of  tannic  acid,  a  widely  used  treatment  for  burns. 

Sulfaguanidine  was  developed  specifically  to  fight  diseases 
of  the  intestinal  tract,  which  the  other  four  drugs  don't  attack 
effectively.  It  is  particularly  useful  in  the  treatment  of  bacil- 
lary  dysentery,  a  disease  that  has  ravaged  armies  throughout 
history.  The  drug  clears  up  most  cases  within  three  to  five 
days,  and  the  soldier  does  not  need  to  be  hospitalized. 

Since  the  different  germs — pneumococcus,  streptococcus, 
staphylococcus,  gonococcus,  and  others — may  produce  a  wide 
variety  of  diseases,  chemists  are  constantly  seeking  other  sulfa 
derivatives  to  combat  them.1  Sulfasuxidine,  or  succinyl-sulfa- 
thiazole,  has  proved  useful  in  clearing  up  infections  of  the  gas- 
trointestinal tract.  But  in  May,  1943,  there  appeared  a  new 
sulfa  drug — phthalyl-sulfathiazole — which  is  expected  to  be  a 
more  powerful  weapon  against  intestinal  infections,  such  as 
dysentery,  than  any  of  its  relatives.  It  has  two  to  four  times 
the  germ-checking  power  of  sulfasuxidine.  Doses  by  mouth 
at  four-hour  intervals  have  produced  no  toxic  symptoms  in 
dog  or  man. 

Thousands  of  people  are  alive  today  because  sulfa  drugs 
defended  them  against  disease  germs  that  would  have  proved 
fatal  a  few  years  ago.  In  five  years  these  wonder  drugs  have 
cut  the  death  rate  in  pneumonia  almost  two-thirds  and  in 
appendicitis  35  per  cent.  Gas  gangrene,  which  is  caused  by  a 

1  More  than  one  thousand  other  sulfa  derivatives  are  being  studied  today 
by  chemists.  The  latest  sulfa  derivative — sulfamerazine — has  proved  to  be 
even  less  toxic  than  sulfadiazine,  which  had  been  considered  in  most  cases 
the  most  powerful  and  the  least  toxic  of  these  drugs. 


Medicine  Looks  Ahead  241 

bacillus  and  not  by  poison  gases,  no  longer  is  a  great  menace 
to  the  wounded  soldier  because  of  sulfa  powder. 

Meningitis,  inflammation  of  the  membranes  that  envelop 
the  brain  and  spinal  cord,  was  one  of  the  plagues  of  the  first 
World  War.  It  may  be  caused  by  the  meningococcus,  the 
tubercle  bacillus,  the  pneumococcus,  the  streptococcus,  or  the 
haemophilus  influenzae.  Meningitis  due  to  the  meningococcus 
can  be  treated  with  serum  and  sulfanilamide.  Deaths  probably 
could  be  cut  to  five  per  one  hundred  cases  by  a  prompt  use  of 
sulfanilamide  and  sulfapyridine.  Meningitis  due  to  strepto- 
coccus and  haemophilus  influenzae  is  harder  to  combat.  Sul- 
fanilamide has  pulled  65  per  cent  of  the  patients  through  the 
first,  and  sulfadiazine  and  serum  have  changed  the  100  per 
cent  mortality  of  the  second  to  a  70  per  cent  recovery. 

Gonorrhea,  which  afflicts  an  estimated  twelve  million  or 
more  persons  in  the  United  States,  is  probably  the  most  fre- 
quent cause  of  sterility  in  both  sexes  and  often  leads  to  other 
serious  ailments.  In  terms  of  relative  prevalence,  gonorrhea  is 
four  to  eight  times  as  common  in  the  armed  forces  as  syphilis 
— now  being  treated  speedily  by  the  new  arsenic  drug  ma- 
pharsen.  Remarkable  results  have  been  achieved  with  sulf  athia- 
zole  and  other  sulfa  drugs  in  the  treatment  of  gonorrhea.  And 
now  the  Army  and  Navy  are  conducting  tests  which  indicate 
that  sulfathiazole  prophylaxis  will  prevent  gonorrhea.  The 
giving  of  sulfathiazole  to  men  before  and  after  exposure  re- 
duced the  incidence  of  the  disease  in  a  test  group  to  a  yearly 
level  of  8  per  thousand  as  compared  with  171  per  thousand  in 
the  control  group. 

Commenting  on  the  test,  the  Journal  of  the  American 
Medical  Association  said: 

"It  is  our  opinion  that,  under  certain  conditions  and  in  a  final 
form  yet  to  be  developed,  prophylactic  sulfathiazole  adminis- 
tration would  produce  a  remarkable  gonorrhea  decline  in  the 
Army.  Certain  dangers  are  involved  in  administering  the  drug, 


242  Miracles  Ahead! 

particularly  on  a  large  scale.  In  view  of  the  magnitude  of  the 
venereal  disease  problem  and  its  effect  on  man  days  lost,  we 
believe  the  risks  are  justified." 

Erysipelas,  impetigo,  scarlet  fever,  tonsilitis,  and  diseases  of 
the  ear— all  are  being  routed  by  the  sulfa  drugs,  and  new 
marvels  of  healing  will  be  performed  in  the  future  by  these 
"magic  bullets." 

It  appears  that  these  drugs  don't  kill  disease  germs.  Dr. 
Galdston  explains  that  they  seem  to  do  their  work  by  making 
it  impossible  for  the  particular  bacteria  to  feed.  The  starved 
bacteria  cannot  multiply  for  an  all-out  attack  on  the  body, 
so  the  body's  armed  forces — its  white  blood  cells  and  immune 
bodies — counterattack  and  kill  off  the  bacteria.  But  all  the 
actions  of  the  sulfa  drugs  have  not  been  explained  by  scien- 
tists, and  more  is  being  learned  about  them  every  day.  This 
knowledge  will  help  doctors  use  the  sulfa  drugs  in  such  a  way 
as  to  avoid  toxic  effects  on  patients,  and  speed  up  the  germ- 
fighting  action  of  the  drugs. 

Penicillin — Germ  Destroyer 

Although  great  strides  have  been  made  in  the  conquest  of 
disease  by  the  use  of  sulfa  drugs,  a  newcomer — penicillin — 
is  favored  by  many  to  win  the  germ-killing  championship  in 
the  near  future.  The  Journal  of  the  A.M.A.  hails  it  as  "far 
superior  to  any  of  the  sulfonamides"  in  the  treating  of  in- 
fected wounds  and  burns.  Penicillin  is  an  extract  from  a  com- 
mon mold,  penicillium  notatum,  similar  to  the  molds  that 
occur  in  cheese  and  bread.  It  was  accidentally  discovered  in 
1929  by  Dr.  Alexander  Fleming,  an  English  bacteriologist. 
The  mold  contaminated  some  culture  plates  while  he  was 
searching  for  an  influenza-causing  organism,  and  was  ob- 
served to  check  the  growth  of  some  other  organisms.  Broth 
cultures  of  the  mold  were  found  to  contain  an  antibacterial 
substance,  later  named  penicillin.  The  first  work  was  not  fol- 


Medicine  Looks  Ahead  243 

lowed  up  immediately,  but  in  1940  and  1941  a  group  of  medi- 
cal students  at  Oxford  conducted  careful  experiments  with 
the  drug. 

One  of  these  men,  Dr.  H.  W.  Florey,  visited  the  United 
States  in  1941  and  interested  Drs.  R.  D.  Coghill  and  A.  J. 
Meyer  of  the  United  States  Department  of  Agriculture  in 
launching  experiments  in  the  culture  and  purification  of  peni- 
cillin. This  work,  at  the  Agriculture  Department's  laboratory 
in  Peoria,  Illinois,  proved  invaluable  in  developing  produc- 
tion. A  number  of  commercial  drug  houses — Merck  &  Co., 
E.  R.  Squibb  &  Sons,  Charles  Pfizer  &  Co.,  and  Lederle  Labo- 
ratories— began  manufacturing  penicillin  in  1943. 

Penicillin  is  perhaps  the  most  powerful  bacteria-killing 
agent  known  to  man.  It  can  destroy  disease-producing  germs 
even  when  dissolved  in  100,000,000  parts  of  water.  Aside 
from  being  more  powerful  than  the  sulfa  drugs,  penicillin  has 
given  no  toxic  reactions  even  from  the  largest  dosage.  More 
important,  penicillin  has  been  found  highly  effective  against 
the  pus-causing  bacteria  (staphylococcus  aureus)  responsible 
for  pimples  and  boils,  and  also  against  such  serious  infections 
as  acute  and  chronic  osteomyelitis,  or  bone  infections;  cellu- 
litis,  or  inflammation  of  connective  tissue;  carbuncles  of  the 
lip  and  face;  empyema  of  the  chest — pus  in  the  chest — and  a 
type  of  pneumonia  caused  by  this  germ.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  sulfa  drugs  have  proved  of  only  limited  value  against 
staphylococcus  infections.  In  several  cases  penicillin  quickly 
cleared  up  such  infections  after  the  sulfa  drugs  had  failed  and 
a  fatal  outcome  seemed  probable. 

The  first  military  tests  of  penicillin  began  in  the  summer  of 
1943  at  the  Bushnell  General  Hospital,  Brigham  City,  Utah, 
by  order  of  Major  General  James  C.  Magee,  Surgeon  General 
of  the  Army.  The  Committee  on  Medical  Research  of  the 
Office  of  Scientific  Research  and  Development  reported  in  the 
Journal  of  the  A.M. A.  that  results  of  the  Army  tests  were  "so 
encouraging  that  plans  are  now  in  process  for  undertaking 


244  Miracles  Ahead! 

similar  wound  studies  in  ten  general  Army  hospitals."  The  use 
of  penicillin  on  venereal  disease  will  be  tested  in  six  other  mili- 
tary hospitals. 

The  production  of  penicillin  from  mold,  however,  is  a  dif- 
ficult and  space-consuming  operation,  and  until  the  problem 
of  large-scale  production  is  solved  the  limited  supply  avail- 
able will  go  almost  entirely  to  the  Army  and  Navy.  A  small 
amount  is  being  used  in  a  series  of  controlled  tests  in  twenty 
civilian  hospitals. 

Production  problems  were  discussed  by  Dr.  A.  N.  Richards, 
chairman  of  the  Committee  on  Medical  Research. 

"The  difficulties  which  confront  large-scale  production," 
he  said,  "arise  chiefly  from  the  fact  that  in  the  metabolism  of 
the  mold  only  very  minute  amounts  of  penicillin  are  formed, 
and  those  only  after  days  of  growth. 

"A  yield  of  as  much  as  one  gram  [about  three-hundredths 
of  an  ounce]  of  the  purified  product  from  20  liters  [a  liter  is 
about  a  quart]  of  culture  fluid  would  be  regarded  as  excep- 
tionally high."  * 

But  if  chemists  are  able  to  take  penicillin  apart  and  see  what 
it  is  made  of  they  may  be  able  to  synthesize  it  in  the  labora- 
tory. This  would  make  available  larger  amounts  of  this  valu- 
able drug  at  low  cost.  Scientists  have  been  working  on  this 
problem  for  several  years,  and  a  recent  article  in  the  British 
Journal  of  Experimental  Pathology  indicates  that  penicillin 
may  be  a  complex  member  of  the  very  large  coal-tar  group  of 
compounds.  Thus  penicillin  may  eventually  be  synthesized 
from  coal-tar  compounds. 

1  A  method  that  makes  penicillin  available  to  a  much  larger  number  of 
civilian  patients  was  reported  in  Science,  official  organ  of  the  American 
Association  for  the  Advancement  of  Science,  by  Dr.  George  H.  Robinson 
and  Dr.  James  E.  Wallace  of  the  Allegheny  General  Hospital,  Pittsburgh, 
Pa.  The  new  method  consists  of  applying  gauze  saturated  with  the  living 
green  mold  to  the  patients  infection,  thus  allowing  the  mold  to  manufac- 
ture its  penicillin  directly  on  the  site  of  the  infection. 


Medicine  Looks  Ahead  245 

"When  the  structure  of  penicillin  becomes  known,"  de- 
clares Arthur  D.  Little,  Inc.,  Chemists-Engineers,  "research 
on  its  production  and  use  will  undoubtedly  proceed  much 
more  rapidly  and  perhaps  compounds  will  be  found  which 
are  structurally  similar  and  equally  active  but  easier  to  use. 
It  is  indeed  possible  that  a  whole  new  class  of  chemothera- 
peutic  materials  similar  to  penicillin  will  be  opened  up  and 
that  penicillin  will  be  overshadowed  as  sulfanilamide  has  been 
by  some  of  its  derivatives." 

Already  a  second  and  more  potent  germ-killing  drug  has 
been  discovered  in  the  mold  penicillium  notatum.  The  new 
derivative,  called  penatin,  was  reported  by  Dr.  Walter 
Kochalaty  of  the  University  of  Pennsylvania.  Penatin  is  more 
powerful  than  penicillin,  but  also  is  active  against  disease 
germs  which  are  hardly  affected  by  penicillin.  Not  one  of 
fifty  disease-causing  and  nondisease-causing  organisms  could 
resist  penatin  in  dilutions  of  one  to  ten  million  parts  and  some- 
times in  dilutions  of  one  to  four  hundred  million. 

Gramicidin — New  Microbe  Killer 

In  1940  Dr.  Rene  J.  Dubos  announced  that  he  had  ex- 
tracted from  a  special  strain  of  soil  bacteria  a  chemical  sub- 
stance he  named  gramicidin,  which  had  proved  the  most 
powerful  microbe  killer  until  then  known  to  man.  Gramicidin 
was  found,  however,  to  be  highly  toxic  to  animals  as  well  as 
to  bacteria,  and  it  had  to  take  a  back  seat  while  penicillin 
exhibited  its  miraculous  germ-killing  powers.  Meanwhile  Dr. 
Wallace  E.  Herrell  and  Dr.  Dorothy  Heilman  of  the  Mayo 
Clinic  sought  to  determine  how  gramicidin  produced  its  toxic 
effects  on  animals.  They  found  that  along  with  its  powerful 
germicidal  action  it  also  had  the  power  to  break  down  red 
blood  cells  by  the  process  known  as  hemolysis. 

It  was  concluded,  therefore,  that  the  chemical  could  be  used 
safely  in  local  applications  where  it  was  not  necessary  to  put 


246  Miracles  Ahead! 

it  in  the  blood  stream.  Tests  on  animals  proved  this  was  the 
case,  and  gramicidin  also  has  been  used  effectively  on  sinus 
infections,  infections  of  the  bladder,  infected  but  not  bleed- 
ing wounds,  ulcers,  and  empyema  from  pneumonia.  Drs. 
Charles  H.  Remmelkamp  and  Chester  S.  Keefer  of  the  Massa- 
chusetts Memorial  Hospital,  Boston,  reported  that  sinus  infec- 
tions were  cleared  up  within  forty-eight  hours.  Severe  blad- 
der infections  that  the  sulfa  drugs  did  not  affect  were  cured 
within  one  week. 


Streptothricin — Another  Microbe  Killer 

Working  under  the  old  adage  that  "the  smallest  bugs  have 
smaller  bugs  which  live  upon  and  bite  them,"  Dr.  Selman  A. 
Waksman,  of  Rutgers  University,  and  Dr.  H.  Boyd  Wood- 
ruff, of  the  New  Jersey  Agricultural  Experiment  Station,  have 
found  other  germ-killing  substances  in  a  fungus  which  grows 
rampant  in  the  soil.  They  reported  that  one  of  these  sub- 
stances, Streptothricin,  is  so  potent  that  a  solution  of  one  part 
in  one  million  would  kill  millions  of  the  deadly  streptococcus 
germs.  Nine  or  more  of  these  germ  killers  have  been  isolated 
and  work  is  proceeding  on  them. 

The  chief  difficulty  in  using  them  to  fight  disease  has  been 
their  extreme  toxicity  both  to  the  germs  and  to  animals.  But 
Streptothricin,  closely  related  to  gramicidin,  is  far  less  toxic 
and  is  said  to  show  very  promising  results  for  possible  human 
treatment. 

Quinine  Substitutes 

When  Japanese  forces  swept  through  the  Far  East  they  got 
control  of  95  per  cent  of  the  world's  quinine  supply  needed 
to  combat  deadly  malaria.  But  American  chemists  were  able 


Medicine  Looks  Ahead  247 

to  produce  a  good  substitute,  atabrin,  because  of  work  done 
by  Japan's  ally,  Germany.  Atabrine  was  developed  in  the 
1920*8  by  I.G.  Farbenindustrie.  If  administered  in  heavy  doses 
under  medical  supervision,  atabrin  will  cure  or  check  malaria. 
Another  chemical  agent,  plasmochin,  kills  the  gametacytes, 
the  reproductive  form  of  the  malaria  parasite.  When  the 
anopheline  mosquito  bites  a  person  infected  with  malaria  it 
sucks  up  the  gametacytes,  and  then  it  spreads  these  deadly 
parasites  to  all  whom  it  bites. 

"Health  Bomb"  for  Mosquitoes 

This  is  why  it  is  important  to  drain  and  spray  swamps.  If 
the  mosquitoes  are  destroyed  they  cannot  carry  the  gameta- 
cytes from  an  infected  person  to  a  new  victim.  Naval  officers 
point  out,  however,  that  it  is  difficult  for  shock  troops  land- 
ing under  fire  to  fight  malaria  and  the  enemy  simultaneously. 
"You  can't  stop  to  dig  ditches  and  put  up  screens  while  the 
enemy  bullets  are  whistling  over  your  head  on  the  beach," 
they  add.  When  troops  go  into  action  in  malarial  country 
they  are  protected  with  new  types  of  insect  repellent  which 
will  keep  mosquitoes  away  for  several  hours.  The  Army  also 
has  developed  a  "health  bomb"  containing  what  is  said  to  be 
the  most  powerful  insecticide  yet  developed.  It  is  made  from 
sesame  oil,  freon,  and  pyrethrum,  and  is  packed  in  six-inch 
metal  pressure  containers. 

With  this  device,  soldiers  can  destroy  every  deadly  insect 
in  barracks  and  dugouts  in  an  amazingly  short  time.  Cargo 
and  transport  planes  returning  to  America  from  malaria- 
infested  areas  can  be  rid  of  disease-laden  insects  in  flight  long 
before  there  is  any  danger  of  bringing  these  dangerous  stow- 
aways into  the  United  States.  The  Army  hopes  these  "bombs" 
will  reduce  the  casualty  rate  of  past  wars,  in  which  disease  has 


248  Miracles  Ahead! 

carried  off  as  many  men  as  did  bullets.  One  military  authority 
said  the  device  may  save  more  American  lives  than  any  other 
single  invention  of  the  war  to  date. 

Colonel  George  F.  Spann  predicted  that  the  new  insecti- 
cide, which  was  developed  by  a  Department  of  Agriculture 
chemist,  would  prove  equally  popular  with  civilians  after  the 
war.  "It  can  fumigate  a  house  in  a  few  minutes  or  annihilate 
the  crawling,  buzzing  'gremlins'  that  take  the  joy  out  of  fish- 
ing, hunting,  camping  or  picnicking,"  he  declared. 

Waging  War  on  Epidemic  Diseases 

Finally  Army  doctors  reported  in  May,  1943,  that  they  had 
developed  a  new  treatment  for  malaria  that  gave  promise  of 
"amazing"  results.  It  was  said  to  allow  the  victim  to  recover 
strength  and  weight  rapidly,  and  to  end  the  recurrent  chills  and 
fever  caused  by  malaria.  That  was  all  they  would  say  about 
the  treatment  at  that  time.  It  should  prove  to  be  worth  its 
weight  in  gold  in  postwar  years.  Throughout  the  world  eight 
hundred  million  people  suffer  from  malaria  every  year,  and 
three  million  of  them  die. 

In  his  book  Plague  on  Us,1  Geddes  Smith  writes  that  "the 
great  urban  cholera  and  typhoid  epidemics  of  the  ipth  cen- 
tury were  a  logical  consequence  of  practices  that  no  well- 
bred  housecat  would  countenance." 

He  quotes  the  description  of  one  city's  water  supply  given 
by  a  health  officer: 

"The  appearance  and  quality  of  the  public  water  supply 
were  such  that  the  poor  used  it  for  soup,  the  middle  class  dyed 
their  clothes  in  it  and  the  very  rich  used  it  for  top-dressing 
their  lawns.  Those  who  drank  it  filtered  it  through  a  ladder, 
disinfected  it  with  chloride  of  lime,  then  lifted  out  the  danger- 

1  Smith,  Geddes,  Plague  on  Us.  New  York,  The  Commonwealth  Fund, 
1941. 


Medicine  Looks  Ahead  249 

ous  germs,  which  survived,  and  killed  them  with  a  club  in  the 
backyard." 

After  Pasteur  and  Koch  discovered  the  first  disease  germs, 
progress  was  made  in  teaching  people  the  importance  of  a 
pure  water  supply.  England  and  Germany  led  the  way  in 
water  purification  and  in  the  early  1900*5  American  cities 
finally  began  to  follow  suit.  Today  people  fully  realize  the 
dangers  of  typhoid  and  know  that  a  system  of  purifying  the 
water  and  treating  the  sewage  is  vital  in  preventing  an  epi- 
demic. 

In  war-torn  areas  where  the  water  supply  and  sewage  sys- 
tems of  cities  have  been  destroyed,  the  typhoid  fever  menace 
is  ever  present.  In  all  wars  prior  to  the  first  World  War  ty- 
phoid generally  proved  more  deadly  than  shot  and  shell.  The 
use  of  typhoid  vaccine  checked  this  disease  in  the  first  World 
War  and  has  proved  highly  effective  since  then.  The  vaccine 
consists  of  dead  typhoid  germs.  The  injection  of  these  germs 
causes  the  formation  in  a  person's  blood  of  so-called  antibod- 
ies, which  protect  the  individual  against  the  live  germs. 

Our  fighting  men  are  guarded  against  typhoid,  yellow  fever, 
and  several  other  diseases  by  "shots  in  the  arm."  Sanitary 
methods  of  sewage  disposal,  water  purifiers,  and  great  care  in 
the  preparation  of  food  also  protect  the  men  in  our  armed 
services  against  dysentery  and  other  diseases. 

The  Ammo  Acids  Promote  Health  and  Beauty 

Your  hair,  nails,  skin,  soft  tissues,  and  many  vital  secre- 
tions of  your  body  are  composed  mainly  of  protein.  And 
these  proteins  are  made  up  of  smaller  "building  blocks"  called 
amino  acids.  Twenty-three  of  these  acids  are  known  today. 
Scientists  believe  these  acids  play  an  important  role  in  many 
ailments.  Experiments  with  animals  have  proved  that  the  lack 
of  one  amino  acid,  tryptophane,  causes  animals  to  get  bald 


250  Miracles  Ahead! 

and  prevents  them  from  having  offspring.  Purified  amino  acids 
have  recently  become  available  for  experiment  and  scientists 
believe  they  deserve  more  attention  as  factors  in  the  promo- 
tion of  good  health  and  vigor. 

Nature's  Most  Powerful  Vitamin 

The  synthesis  of  biotin,  nature's  most  powerful  vitamin  and 
one  of  the  rarest  and  costliest  substances,  promises  to  open  up 
many  new  fields.  The  synthesis  is  considered  one  of  the  great- 
est achievements  in  modern  chemistry  and  was  accomplished 
at  the  research  laboratories  of  Merck  &  Co.,  Rahway,  New 
Jersey,  by  Dr.  Stanton  A.  Harris,  Dr.  Donald  E.  Wolf,  Dr. 
Ralph  Mozingo,  and  Dr.  Karl  Folkers. 

This  supervitamin  is  a  member  of  the  family  of  B  vitamins, 
which  include  several  whose  names  are  very  well  known  to 
the  general  public:  thiamin,  riboflavin,  niacin.  The  world's 
entire  supply  of  biotin,  so  far  extracted  largely  from  liver, 
amounts  to  about  one-tenth  of  an  ounce.  It  was  so  costly  and 
rare  that  only  minute  amounts  were  available  to  research 
workers,  who  paid  for  it  at  the  rate  of  four  million  dollars  an 


ounce! 


In  1936  Professor  Fritz  Koegel  and  Dr.  B.  Toennis  of 
Utrecht,  Holland,  succeeded  in  extracting  i.i  milligrams  of 
the  pure  substance.  They  got  this  infinitesimal  amount  from 
five  hundred  and  fifty  pounds  of  dried  yolks  of  duck  eggs 
imported  from  China.  It  was  so  potent  that  one  part  in  five 
hundred  billion  could  still  function  as  a  growth-promoting 
factor  for  yeast.  One  gram  dissolved  in  twenty-five  million 
gallons  of  water  would  be  strong  enough  for  the  life  needs 
of  bacteria. 

Yeast  and  bacteria  need  this  supervitamin.  And  so  do  all 
higher  forms  of  life,  including  man.  The  bacteria  that  make 
the  nitrogen  in  the  air  available  to  plants  also  cannot  live  with- 


Medicine  Looks  Ahead  251 

out  biotin,  which  means  that  without  biotin  no  life  could  have 
arisen  on  earth. 

Biotin  is  found  in  the  yolk  of  all  eggs.  In  order  to  check 
biotin's  enormous  growth-promoting  powers,  nature  has  pro- 
vided a  brake  in  the  form  of  an  antibiotin  substance,  named 
avidin,  in  the  egg  white.  The  synthesis  of  biotin  now  prom- 
ises to  shed  light  on  the  structure  of  avidin,  its  counterpart  in 
the  "balance  wheel  of  life."  When  biotin  is  made  available  in 
large  amounts  it  is  hoped  that  it  will  provide  important  clues 
for  new  weapons  not  only  against  cancer  but  also  against 
tuberculosis,  since  no  bacteria  have  so  far  been  found  that  can 
exist  without  biotin. 

A  Clue  to  Cancer 

Medical  men  have  improved  the  methods  of  diagnosis  and 
of  early  operation  so  that  a  good  many  cancer  patients  can  be 
saved.  But  cancer  remains  the  most  terrible  of  all  diseases.  At 
the  present  rate,  one  of  every  eight  individuals  now  living  will 
die  of  cancer.  No  one  knows  what  goes  wrong  in  cells,  and 
particularly  in  their  growth  processes,  so  that  one  or  a  few 
run  wild  and  multiply  beyond  reason. 

Not  only  has  biotin  been  found  to  stimulate  normal  growth 
but,  under  certain  conditions  not  yet  fully  known,  it  has  been 
found  to  stimulate  abnormal  growth,  such  as  the  uncontrolled 
growth  of  cancer  cells.  This  does  not  mean  that  biotin  would 
cause  cancer.  It  does  mean,  however,  that  if  the  unknown 
conditions  causing  cancer  exist  the  presence  of  biotin  would 
stimulate  development  of  the  process. 

Professor  Ira  I.  Kaplan  of  the  New  York  University  Col- 
lege of  Medicine,  and  director  of  the  Cancer  Division  of 
Bellevue  Hospital,  is  carrying  out  tests  which  seek  to  control 
cancer  by  the  administration  of  large  daily  doses  of  dried  raw 
egg  white.  It  is  hoped  that  avidin,  the  antibiotin  substance  in 


252  Miracles  Ahead! 

egg  white,  will  deprive  a  patient's  tissues  of  biotin  and  thus 
check  the  cancer  process.  The  results  so  far  have  been  de- 
scribed as  indicating  the  advisability  of  further  tests. 

Research  Work  on  the  Common  Cold 

The  so-called  common  cold  and  the  "flu"  are  the  source  of 
more  lowered  physical  efficiency — and  greater  economic  loss 
— than  any  other  illnesses.  During  the  winter  of  1941  an 
average  of  fifty  million  people  suffered  from  colds,  and  twenty 
million  were  affected  by  the  flu,  according  to  a  survey  by  the 
American  Institute  of  Public  Opinion.  The  common  cold 
frequently  paves  the  way  for  many  kinds  of  secondary  infec- 
tions that  are  often  serious.  A  minor  epidemic  of  influenza 
occurs  in  the  United  States  every  other  year.  The  last  major 
epidemic,  which  swept  the  world  in  1918,  resulted  in  millions 
of  deaths. 

The  germs  which  cause  colds  have  never  been  identified. 
They  are  presumed  to  be  filterable  viruses  (so  small  they  can 
pass  through  the  pores  of  very  fine  filters).  Not  even  the 
electron  microscope  has  been  able  to  spot  a  cold  germ, 
although  it  discovered  the  virus  of  influenza — a  protein  smaller 
than  some  molecules.  We  have  assumed  that  colds  are  con- 
tagious, but  recent  experiments  indicate  that  this  may  be  in- 
correct. 

Dr.  William  J.  Kerr  and  his  associates  at  the  University  of 
California  Medical  School  placed  healthy  volunteers  who 
catch  cold  easily  in  a  room  where  the  temperature  and  humid- 
ity are  controlled.  Then  they  were  exposed  to  people  who 
were  suffering  from  colds.  These  people  lived  together  for 
days  and  drank  out  of  the  same  drinking  glasses.  Not  one  of 
the  thirty  without  colds  caught  the  symptoms  from  those  who 
had  them.  This  experiment  indicates  that  abrupt  weather 
changes,  overheating,  and  exposure  to  drafts  have  more  to  do 


Medicine  Looks  Ahead  253 

with  the  spread  of  cold  than  a  cough  or  a  sneeze.  On  the 
other  hand,  if  the  bacteria  or  virus  of  the  cold  is  air-borne,  the 
use  of  germicidal  lamps  should  reduce  the  danger  of  infec- 
tion. 

Influenza  has  been  proved  to  be  a  virus  disease,  and  Type  A, 
B,  and  a  probable  Type  Y  have  been  distinguished.  A  virus 
vaccine  has  been  administered  at  the  University  of  California 
with  fairly  good  results.  Science  believes  that  better  vaccines 
will  be  developed  in  the  future. 

Blood  Plasma  for  Civilian  Use 

Wartime  advances  in  the  use  of  blood  plasma  and  the  de- 
velopment of  blood  banks  are  proving  of  great  aid  in  the 
treatment  of  patients.  Big  hospitals  have  banks  of  plasma  and 
of  whole  blood  completely  tested  and  ready  for  immediate 
use.  Of  course,  the  small  hospitals  are  not  so  well  supplied. 
But  these  small  institutions  in  New  York  City  are  being  aided 
today  by  the  Blood  and  Plasma  Exchange  Bank,  which  was 
established  by  the  Medical  Society  of  the  County  of  New 
York. 

"Whole  blood,  plasma  (the  pale,  straw-colored  liquid  in 
which  the  red  cells  float),  or  dried  plasma  now  become  as 
negotiable  as  checks,"  explains  Waldemar  Kaempffert,  science 
editor  of  the  New  York  Times.  "The  cost  of  transfusions  is 
reduced;  time  is  saved;  the  poor  can  receive  blood  products 
free. 

"The  Blood  and  Plasma  Exchange  Bank  is  particularly  com- 
petent to  benefit  small  hospitals  and  tie  them  to  the  big  hos- 
pitals which  always  have  a  surplus  of  blood.  Suppose,  for 
example,  that  a  transfusion  is  called  for  by  a  physician.  Mem- 
bers of  the  patient's  family  offer  their  blood.  If  it  matches 
that  of  the  patient  and  is  acceptable  there  is  no  difficulty. 
But  suppose  it  does  not  match,  though  it  is  good  blood. 


254  Miracles  Ahead! 

Formerly  the  donors  were  rejected.  Now  two  people  whose 
blood  is  of  no  value  to  the  patient  can  go  to  the  Blood  and 
Plasma  Exchange  Bank.  Each  gives  a  pint  of  blood.  One  pint 
of  blood  suitable  for  the  patient  is  then  sent  from  the  Exchange 
to  the  hospital  in  return  for  the  donated  two  pints.  If  only 
one  donor  gives  blood  to  the  exchange  bank,  $10.00  is 
charged.  If  the  patient  prefers  not  to  send  donors  but  to  pay 
for  the  blood,  the  cost  is  $20.00,  or  about  one-half  of  what 
was  formerly  charged.  Thus,  a  large  hospital  with  blood  bank 
(called  a  supplying  hospital)  is  interlaced  with  the  hospitals 
without  banks  (called  requisitioning  hospitals) .  What  we  have 
is  an  efficient  system  of  trading  blood. 

"The  next  step,"  he  adds,  "is  to  extend  this  plan  to  coun- 
ties that  border  New  York.  After  that  a  national  organization 
is  envisioned  with  blood  and  plasma  exchanges  all  over  the 
country.  Lastly,  there  is  the  prospect  that  blood  will  be  given 
by  generous  donors  not  only  for  war  but  for  peace;  for  when 
transfusions  can  be  carried  out  anywhere  at  low  cost  the 
demand  for  blood  is  bound  to  rise." 

Another  important  development  is  the  use  of  red  cells 
obtained  from  blood  collected  at  blood  banks.  In  the  past  the 
hospitals  and  Red  Cross  stations  processing  the  blood  have 
thrown  the  red  cells  away.  All  they  wanted  was  the  plasma; 
therefore  about  half  the  blood  was  wasted.  Now,  however, 
the  red  cells  are  being  used  for  wounds,  infected  burns,  and 
ulcers  which  did  not  react  to  the  usual  treatment. 

Progress  also  is  being  made  in  the  development  of  a  possible 
substitute  or  supplement  for  blood  plasma  in  case  of  short- 
ages of  plasma.  The  substitute  is  obtained  from  either  beef- 
blood  plasma  or  casein,  the  chief  protein  of  milk.  Such  solu- 
tions have  shown  themselves  as  good  as  blood  plasma  for  the 
treatment  of  animals  suffering  from  shock  due  to  repeated 
hemorrhage.  Solutions  made  from  pure  crystals  of  all  the 
essential  amino  acids  also  were  beneficial. 


Medicine  Looks  Ahead  255 

Transplanting  Vital  Organs 

In  the  field  of  surgery  Ralph  W.  Gerard,  Department  of 
Physiology,  University  of  Chicago,  looks  forward  to  the  day 
when  it  will  be  possible  to  replace  entirely  an  injured  kidney, 
or  other  organ,  by  transplanting  into  the  body  a  healthy  one. 
"So  far,"  he  says,  "such  organ  transplantation  has  been 
achieved  only  in  so  simple  a  case  as  the  transparent  front  of 
the  eye,  but  there  is  no  reason  now  for  supposing  that  the 
successful  transplantation  of  complex  organs  will  not  one  day 
be  possible." * 

A  Cure  for  Deafness 

Drs.  Valdes  and  Schulhof  of  Mexico  have  devised  a  new 
method  of  curing  deafness  which  they  believe  can  cure  60 
per  cent  of  all  the  cases  in  the  United  States  and  Mexico.  The 
method  consists  of  a  plastic  reconstruction  of  the  middle  and 
inner  ear,  and  it  has  worked  successfully  on  scores  of  peo- 
ple. The  affected  parts  of  the  ear,  which  have  been  destroyed 
by  sickness  or  accident,  are  totally  removed.  Plastic  substi- 
tutes, made  of  "materials"  from  the  patient's  own  body,  are 
put  in  their  place.  These  operations  are  performed  at  the  Pub- 
lic Welfare  Building,  but  their  success  has  become  so  wide- 
spread that  rich  as  well  as  poor  are  now  flocking  to  the  clinic 
of  Drs.  Valdes  and  Schulhof. 

1  The  New  York  Times,  November  7,  1943,  reported  on  a  motion-picture 
demonstration  in  New  York  City  of  pioneer  experiments  in  the  Soviet  Insti- 
tute of  Experimental  Biology  at  Moscow  in  which  animals  that  had  been 
dead  as  long  as  fifteen  minutes  were  restored  to  life.  The  revival  of  dead 
animals  is  achieved  by  a  new  apparatus,  known  as  the  "autoejector."  Profes- 
sor J.  B.  S.  Haldane,  British  scientist  who  made  the  sound-track  commentary 
explained  that  the  autoejector  "carries  out  the  functions  of  the  heart  and 
lungs."  Biologists  hailed  the  experiments  as  promising  a  new  epoch  in  medi- 
cal science,  "bringing  closer  the  day  when  operations  now  incompatible  with 
life  will  be  possible.  These  may  include  repair  to  a  damaged  heart  or  brain 
and  the  restoration  of  persons  who  died  of  shock  and  hemorrhage,"  the 
Times  reported. 


256  Miracles  Ahead! 

Plastic  materials  from  the  chemists'  laboratory  are  used  in- 
creasingly by  surgeons.  In  cases  where  injuries  have  destroyed 
the  hard  cartilage  that  lines  the  socket  of  the  hip  joint,  the 
transparent  plastic  known  as  Lucite,  or  methyl  methacrylate 
resin,  serves  perfectly.  It  has  also  been  used  to  recondition 
arthritic  knuckle  joints  and  jaws.  The  loss  of  Japanese  silk, 
needed  for  sutures  to  sew  wounds,  has  been  made  up  by 
nylon,  which  was  introduced  on  a  wide  scale  in  surgery  in 
1943. 

A  Treatment  for  Hypertension 

Delicate  nerve  operations,  in  which  the  surgeon  partially 
severs  a  nerve,  have  cured  several  painful  and  deadly  dis- 
eases. The  neurosurgeon  also  can  frequently  clear  up  hyper- 
tension, in  which  blood  vessels  tighten  dangerously  and  the 
blood  pressure  soars.  Hypertension  long  has  outranked  cancer 
and  tuberculosis  as  a  cause  of  death,  particularly  among 
middle-aged  persons.  Heparin  (from  ox  lungs)  and  dicoumarin 
(found  in  diseased  clover)  act  to  slow  up  the  clotting  of 
blood,  thereby  permitting  surgeons  to  operate  successfully  on 
clotted  blood  vessels  even  in  certain  forms  which  formerly 
caused  death  in  over  85  per  cent  of  all  cases. 

Regional  Anesthesia 

Great  progress  has  been  made  in  the  use  of  regional  anes- 
thesia in  place  of  the  "general,"  which  puts  you  to  sleep.  One 
method  consists  of  the  continuous  injection  near  the  base  of 
the  spine  of  the  pain-killing  chemical  metycaine,  which  tempo- 
rarily blocks  the  nerve  pathways  for  pain  in  the  lower  part  of 
the  body.  It  has  been  successfully  used  in  operations  for 
femoral  and  inguinal  hernia,  Caesarean  delivery  of  a  baby,  set- 


Medicine  Looks  Ahead  257 

ting  of  broken  bones,  amputations,  and  surgical  treatment  of 
varicose  veins. 

New  instruments,  such  as  an  electronic  device  which  gives 
an  electric  signal  when  it  detects  metal  fragments  buried  in 
the  tissue,  and  the  "radio  knife,"  an  electrosurgical  apparatus 
used  in  brain  surgery  which  seals  off  tiny  blood  vessels  as  they 
are  cut,  permit  the  surgeon  to  work  new  wonders  every  day. 

Electronic  Aids 

The  electron  microscope,  which  is  fifty  to  one  hundred 
times  more  powerful  than  the  strongest  optical  microscope, 
will  permit  the  scientist  to  learn  more  about  the  functions  of 
the  cells  in  the  body,  to  view  deadly  types  of  virus  and  plan 
new  ways  to  attack  them.  Radioactive  atoms,  which  give  off 
the  same  rays  as  radium,  can  be  traced  through  the  body.  Just 
as  the  gunner  uses  tracer  bullets  to  check  his  aim,  the  bio- 
chemist can  use  these  tracer  atoms  to  reveal  the  functions  of 
the  body.  These  new  techniques  and  machines  will,  accord- 
ing to  Professor  Gerard,  enable  scientists  to  "prepare  delib- 
erately drugs  and  other  substances  which  can  modify  cell 
growth,  drugs  which  specifically  hold  in  check  or  destroy 
disease  bacteria,  including  perhaps  the  tuberculosis  germ,  as 
the  sulfa  drugs  and  gramicidin  already  do  for  many." 

Onion  "Broadcasts" 

Shortly  after  the  Russian  Revolution  a  Soviet  professor 
named  Gurwich  discovered  that  onion  roots  "broadcast"  an 
absolutely  new  form  of  electromagnetic  wave.  Other  scien- 
tists checked  Dr.  Gurwich's  discovery  and  also  picked  up 
onion  "broadcasts."  Because  the  waves  are  produced  when- 
ever living  cells  are  dividing  and  growing,  they  were  called 


258  Miracles  Ahead! 

"mitogenetic  rays" — or  M  rays.  Later  Gurwich  "tuned  in" 
waves  coming  from  the  human  body,  and  other  scientists 
proved  that  the  rays  are  sent  out  from  every  tissue  where  the 
vital  process  of  metabolism  goes  on. 

Since  different  M  rays  are  produced  when  different  changes 
take  place  in  a  living  cell,  scientists  will  be  able  to  follow  cell 
changes  without  disturbing  the  plant  or  animal.  The  blood  is 
constantly  giving  out  M  rays  and  recent  experiments  showed 
that  these  rays  are  affected  not  only  by  drugs  but  also  by  the 
age  of  the  patient,  his  or  her  sex,  state  of  health,  hunger,  sleep, 
or  agitation.  M  rays  get  weaker  as  a  man  gets  tired  from  phys- 
ical work.  After  he  rests,  the  blood  starts  "broadcasting" 
again.  But  prolonged  work,  which  causes  serious  fatigue, 
keeps  the  M  rays  quiet  several  hours.  Here  is  an  absolutely 
accurate  method  of  measuring  fatigue. 

Old-Age  Treatments 

Further  medical  advances  will  greatly  increase  life  expec- 
tancy and  more  of  us  will  remain  healthy  for  a  longer  time. 
In  1850  only  2.5  per  cent  of  the  population  was  sixty-five  and 
over.  In  1930  about  5.5  per  cent  were  in  that  category,  and 
in  1980  about  14.5  per  cent  should  be  sixty-five  or  over. 
These  figures  indicate  why  geriatrics  (the  indirect  treatment 
of  the  diseases  of  old  age)  and  gerontology  (the  study  of 
senility)  will  be  increasingly  important.  In  an  article  in  The 
Medical  World,  Dr.  Harry  Benjamin  contends  that  these  two 
branches  of  medicine  must  be  supplemented  by  a  third — 
gerontotherapy — the  direct  treatment  of  the  aging  process. 

According  to  Dr.  Benjamin  the  function  of  gerontother- 
apy would  be  to  stave  off  old  age  and  thus  add  to  the  years  of 
useful  life.  Thus  it  must  start  early.  During  childhood  and 
youth  it  would  be  preventive.  After  the  fiftieth  or  sixtieth 
year  it  would  use  direct  treatment.  Prevention,  he  explains, 


Medicine  Looks  Ahead  259 

calls  for  a  proper  mode  of  living,  which  means  that  faulty  diet 
must  be  corrected  and  excesses  of  work  and  play  avoided. 
The  direct  treatment  of  old  age,  he  says,  calls  for  the  specific 
use  of  vitamins  and  hormones  to  aid  deficient  organs.  The 
hormones  are  "chemical  messengers"  which  mysteriously  reg- 
ulate the  functioning  of  our  bodies  and  minds. 

Air  Age  Problems 

"No  place  on  earth  will  be  more  than  48  hours  from  your 
local  airport"  in  the  postwar  world.  This  statement  sums  up 
the  tremendous  distance-annihilating  achievement  of  the  air- 
plane. But  it  also  tells  public-health  authorities  to  prepare  for 
trouble.  Because  of  air  transport,  dangerous  diseases  in  a  far- 
away part  of  the  world  can  be  carried  to  the  United  States 
overnight.  At  this  moment  four  hundred  uniformed  quaran- 
tine officers  and  sanitary  inspectors  of  the  Public  Health  Serv- 
ice are  standing  guard  at  airports  where  planes  from  overseas 
come  in.  They  see  to  it  that  planes,  which  already  have  been 
sprayed  with  a  chemical  lethal  to  mosquitoes,  are  sprayed 
again.  Passengers  are  given  medical  examinations.  Those  with 
malaria  are  permitted  to  enter  the  country  but  they  must  go 
straight  to  hospitals  and  stay  there  until  they  are  no  longer 
sources  of  infection. 

"Unbelievably  rapid  air  transportation  makes  the  problem 
of  disease  control  of  transcending  importance,"  writes  Hiram 
Blauvelt  in  the  New  York  Herald  Tribune,  "and  with  the 
war's  end  it  will  be  further  aggravated  when  thousands  of 
soldiers  swarm  back  into  the  United  States — ideal  'carriers' 
for  every  type  of  tropical  disease  and  rare  malady  heretofore 
alien  to  this  country. 

"Immunization  will  go  a  long  way  towards  protecting  the 
populations  of  the  world,  whether  at  home  or  traveling,  from 
many  of  the  dread  diseases.  But  the  real  solution  will  come," 


260  Miracles  Ahead! 

he  contends,  "only  when  the  nations  of  the  world  join  in  an 
international  effort  to  eradicate  disease  at  its  source.  And  the 
airplane,  now  serving  as  the  most  destructive  weapon  of  all 
time,  may  well  some  day  be  credited  with  being  the  greatest 
instrument  for  post-war  happiness.  It  will  be  that  when  the 
peoples  of  the  world,  realizing  the  dangers  of  its  capabilities 
in  spreading  disease,  join  forces  to  insure  freedom  from  pesti- 
lence for  all." 


XVI 

MORE  MIRACLES  AHEAD 

So  MUCH  FOR  the  miracles  ahead  in  the  world  which  is  just 
around  the  corner.  What  of  the  world  which  may  not  be 
just  around  the  corner,  but  over  the  next  range  of  mountains? 

These  miracles  farther  ahead  may  sound  fantastic  to  us 
now.  But  the  most  youthful  of  us  can  remember  when  many 
of  the  actualities  of  today  were  the  fantastic  "what  if's"  of 
yesterday. 

Dr.  Charles  M.  A.  Stine  of  Du  Pont  reminds  us  that  "already 
our  world  of  1940,  in  which  we  took  such  pardonable  if  mis- 
taken pride,  is  so  distant  in  the  past  that  it  has  become  an 
antiquity,  as  seen  through  scientific  eyes." 

The  impossibilities  of  the  days  immediately  before  Pearl 
Harbor  have  become  today's  realities.  In  this  war  we  have 
done  a  great  many  things  that  we  couldn't  do.  So  the  last  two 
years  have  brought  tremendous  changes.  And  the  first  two 
years  after  the  war  may  bring  even  more  fantastic  changes. 

Those  things  may  be  beyond  our  comprehension  now;  they 
may  be  beyond  the  reach  of  our  scientists  at  the  moment.  But 
Browning,  in  his  "Andrea  del  Sarto,"  voiced  the  most  charac- 
teristic slogan  of  the  research  scientist: 

...  a  man's  reach  should  exceed  his  grasp, 
Or  what's  a  heaven  for? 

The  day  may  come  when  we  can  use  the  atomic  energy  in 
a  lump  of  coal  to  run  a  factory  for  a  week.  Our  electric 
power  today  is  gained  by  tearing  loose  some  of  the  more- 

261 


262  Miracles  Ahead! 

amenable  electrons  from  the  atom.  Of  course,  the  more  ame- 
nable the  electron  is  about  leaving  the  atom,  the  less  energetic 
it  is  about  going  back  again.  Developments  in  cosmic  rays  and 
atom  smashing  were  checked  by  the  war,  but  scientists  are 
learning  to  dissociate  the  less-amenable  portions  of  the  atom. 
When  they  finish  this  work  we  will  have  a  source  of  energy 
that  is  without  parallel  today.  For  instance,  the  atoms  in  one 
pound  of  uranium,  a  very  heavy  metal,  contain  as  much 
power  as  millions  of  pounds  of  coal. 

The  Amazing  Cyclotron 

The  cyclotron,  known  as  the  "atom  smasher,"  gives  scien- 
tists an  important  tool  for  releasing  the  enormous  power  of 
the  uranium  atoms.  A  sufficiently  powerful  cyclotron  bom- 
bardment, in  which  neutrons  bombard  the  uranium  atoms, 
would  release  175,000,000  volts  of  energy.  Scientists  don't  set 
any  date  when  atomic  energy  will  be  ours  to  use  for  indus- 
trial purposes.  It  could  be  here  in  a  year  or  two,  or  many 
years.  When  it  does  come  all  of  our  needs  can  be  taken  care 
of  with  a  fraction  of  the  labor  now  required. 

In  past  ages  the  alchemists  spent  their  lives  trying  to  turn 
base  metals  into  gold.  Rutherford,  in  recent  years,  proved  that 
this  transmutation  of  matter  was  not  beyond  our  power.  He 
changed  nitrogen  to  hydrogen  by  tearing  electrons  away  from 
the  atom  of  nitrogen  by  bombardment,  and  did  the  same  thing 
with  several  other  elements.  Today  our  power  to  transform 
the  elements  has  been  greatly  enhanced  by  the  cyclotron.  It 
can  rearrange  the  atom's  structure  and  change  it  into  some- 
thing else.  A  stream  of  electrons  is  used  to  knock  loose  the 
nuclei,  or  "deuterons,"  from  atoms  of  hydrogen.  Then  these 
deuterons  strike  with  terrific  speed  at  the  object  that  is  to  be 
bombarded.  This  bombardment  changes  the  arrangement  of 
its  atoms. 


More  Miracles  Ahead  263 

"When  the  bombardment  takes  place,"  wrote  Bruce  Bliven 
in  the  New  Republic,  June  16,  1941,  "almost  unbelievable 
changes  are  created  in  the  substance  exposed  to  the  deuterons. 
Iron  has  some  of  its  atoms  changed  into  those  of  cobalt  or 
manganese.  Others  remain  iron,  but  with  a  wonderful  new 
quality  of  radioactivity.  That  is,  the  iron  takes  on  temporarily 
the  qualities  of  radium  itself,  giving  off  radium's  powerful 
and  penetrating  rays. 

"The  cyclotron-made  'synthetic  radium'  can,  moreover,  be 
employed  in  tremendously  important  ways  not  open  to 
natural  radium.  For  the  marvelous  fact  is  that,  except  for  giv- 
ing off  rays,  a  radioactive  element  acts  precisely  like  the  same 
element  found  in  nature.  When  radioactive  calcium,  for  ex- 
ample, is  fed  to  a  patient,  it  accumulates  in  his  system  just 
where  normal  calcium  does. 

"This  is  of  such  importance  to  medicine  that  informed 
physicians  say  the  cyclotron  is  the  most  wonderful  medical 
tool  since  the  microscope.  For  some  chemicals  naturally  settle 
in  certain  parts  of  the  body.  If  you  were  to  drink  a  solution  of 
iodine  (don't  try  it  with  the  highly  poisonous  variety  in  your 
medicine  cabinet)  the  concentration  in  your  thyroid  gland 
would  be  5,000  times  greater  than  in  your  other  tissues.  In 
experiments  on  animals  drastic  changes  in  the  thyroid  gland 
have  been  effected  with  radioactive  iodine  taken  by  mouth 
without  harm  to  the  other  tissues. 

"This  technique  has  amazing  possibilities.  There  is,  for 
instance,  a  disease  of  the  blood  cells  which  causes  them  to 
reproduce  abnormally;  its  most  serious  form  is  usually  fatal. 
Radioactive  phosphorus  has  been  found  to  concentrate  in  the 
affected  portions  of  the  body,  and  after  receiving  treatment, 
victims  have  lived  for  substantial  periods." 

Scientists  also  will  be  able  to  create  many  new  metals  and 
other  substances  for  use  by  industry.  Instead  of  using  chemi- 


264  Miracles  Ahead! 

cal  processes  they  will  synthesize  materials  by  designing  the 
right  kind  of  atom  and  making  it  in  their  laboratories. 

The  electrons  that  make  radio  broadcasting  possible  will 
help  the  chemist.  They  will  serve  as  catalysts,  speeding  up 
chemical  reactions  by  electronic  bombardment  of  molecules. 
This  new  science  of  "chemotronics"  promises  to  knock  the 
"im"  out  of  impossible  and  produce  a  lot  of  "chemical  silk 
purses"  out  of  sows'  ears. 

Harnessing  the  Sun's  Rays 

Lifting  our  eyes  toward  the  source  of  power,  we  now  give 
attention  to  man's  old  dream  of  harnessing  sunlight.  We  have 
used  the  sun's  rays  to  generate  steam.  And  we  have  made 
considerable  progress  using  the  solar  energy  stored  up  in  coal 
and  oil,  as  well  as  that  from  the  wind  and  falling  water. 

"Up  to  the  present,  however,"  declared  James  F.  Hunt  of 
Du  Pont,  "a  mule  which  eats  hay  and  corn  and  converts  these 
materials  into  the  energy  necessary  to  draw  a  wagon  or  a 
plough  is  the  best  solar  engine  yet  devised.  One  of  these  days, 
however,  some  bright  fellow  may  hit  upon  a  really  good  way 
to  harness  sunlight  directly,  and  his  fortune  will  be  assured. 
That  is  what  you  might  call  hitching  your  wagon  to  a  star — 
in  a  big  way! " 

Several  "bright  fellows"  are  working  on  this  problem  and 
getting  somewhere.  The  photovoltaic  cell,  which  in  one  form 
is  composed  of  iron  coated  with  selenium  and  gold,  produces 
electricity  from  light  rays.  A  number  of  these  cells  will  gen- 
erate enough  electricity  to  run  a  small  electric  motor. 

"Perhaps  the  day  will  come,"  said  James  Stokley  in  Science 
Remakes  Our  World,  "when  sun-drenched  desert  areas  of 
earth  will  be  covered  with  such  cells,  turning  light  into  elec- 
tricity for  the  use  of  the  world." 


More  Miracles  Ahead  265 

We  have  long  known  that  "heat"  can  be  generated  by  put- 
ting two  antagonistic  personalities  side  by  side  at  the  dinner 
table.  The  scientist  can  generate  electric  power  by  putting 
two  dissimilar  metals  together.  Seeback  demonstrated  in  1821 
that  an  electric  current  was  produced  when  an  iron  and  a  cop- 
per wire  were  twisted  together  and  heated.  This  is  called  a 
thermocouple.  Iron  and  copper  produce  very  small  amounts 
of  electricity,  but  recently  scientists  have  found  alloys  whose 
dissimilarities  turn  out  larger  amounts  of  electric  power.  The 
sun's  rays  can  be  used  to  heat  these  thermocouples.  Or  you 
might  use  coal  or  oil  to  heat  huge  thermocouples  and  produce 
electricity.  If  this  "impossible"  (?)  method  is  perfected,  the 
roundabout  way  of  using  coal  or  oil  to  produce  steam,  and 
steam  to  generate  electric  power,  will  be  abolished. 

Two  antagonistic  people  may  cause  the  temperature  to  drop 
as  they  exchange  "frigid"  stares.  The  thermocouple  can  do 
this  too.  If  an  electric  current  is  passed  through  a  thermo- 
couple, a  refrigerating  effect  is  produced. 

Raymond  F.  Yates  declared  in  his  2,100  Needed  Inven- 
tions: 1 

"If  an  inventor  could  apply  this  effect,  discovered  by  Pel- 
tier in  1834,  he  could  evolve  an  electric  refrigerator  that 
would  not  have  one  moving  part,  no  gas,  no  compressors,  or 
electric  motors.  Not  only  that,  but  such  a  refrigerator  would 
cost  one-third  of  present  ice  boxes  and  operate  at  three  times 
the  efficiency.  .  .  .  There  is  a  million  dollars  in  it  for  the 
man  who  can  turn  the  trick." 

And  we  can  rest  assured  that  there  are  men  who  will  bet 
they  can  do  it. 

Revolutionary  advances  in  industry  may  also  be  brought 
about  if  scientists  lick  the  problem  of  transmitting  cheap  elec- 
tric power  by  radio.  This  would  mean  that  manufacturing 

1  Yates,  Raymond,  2,100  Needed  Inventions.  New  York,  Wilfred  Funk, 
Inc.,  1942. 


266  Miracles  Ahead! 

plants  could  go  to  out-of-the-way  places  where  valuable  raw 
materials  were  located,  instead  of  being  tethered  to  the  source 
of  power  to  run  the  machinery.  Fantastic?  Perhaps.  "I  don't 
know  whether  we  can  ever  learn  to  do  this,"  said  Charles  F. 
Kettering  of  General  Motors.  "But,"  he  added,  "all  the  power 
we  have  here  on  earth  came  that  way — by  radio  waves  from 
the  sun." 

Electricity  as  Cheap  as  Water 

Scientists  believe  that  further  advances  in  the  generation 
and  transmission  of  electric  power  will  greatly  reduce  its 
cost.  The  late  Dr.  Charles  P.  Steinmetz  went  so  far  as  to  say 
twenty-five  years  ago  that  electricity  would  someday  be  so 
cheap  that  it  would  not  pay  to  read  meters. 

"Consider  what  it  means,"  wrote  Waldemar  KaempfTert, 
science  editor  of  the  New  York  Times,  "if  electricity  be- 
comes something  that  municipalities  will  furnish  to  manufac- 
turers and  house  builders  as  they  now  furnish  water.  Air 
conditioning,  a  flowering  new  industry,  has  been  held  back 
because  of  the  cost  of  electricity. 

"When  energy  is  reduced  in  price  to  the  level  that  Stein- 
metz had  in  mind  a  city  will  be  glassed  over  and  maintained 
at  a  constant  temperature  and  humidity  the  year  round.  Every 
country  house  will  have  its  uniform  indoor  climate,  manufac- 
tured at  a  cost  less  than  that  which  we  now  pay  for  electric 
lighting.  If  Steinmetz's  prediction  is  fulfilled — and  he  was  one 
of  the  most  distinguished  electrical  engineers  of  his  time — 
even  Broadway  at  its  brightest  will  seem  dim.  We  may  not  be 
able  to  duplicate  sunlight  in  intensity,  but  we  shall  come  close 
enough  to  it." 

Two  other  predictions  of  "things  to  come"  fit  in  here. , 
William  F.  Ogburn,  Department  of  Sociology,  University  of 
Chicago,  points  out  that  better  and  cheaper  air  conditioning 


More  Miracles  Ahead  267 

will  tend  to  make  civilization  move  southward.  Areas  rich 
in  raw  materials,  which  have  been  held  back  by  unfavorable 
climate,  will  be  developed  rapidly  when  air  conditioning 
takes  a  hand. 

The  other  prediction  concerns  lighting.  Today  fluorescent 
lighting,  which  gives  us  more  light  with  less  heat  and  lower 
electricity  bills,  is  a  long  step  ahead  of  incandescent  light. 
But  Raymond  F.  Yates  reported  in  2,100  Needed  Inventions 
on  another  efficient  source  of  illumination,  which  has  not  yet 
been  made  commercially  available.  This  light,  he  explained, 
is  formed  by  placing  two  electrodes  in  an  electrolyte  of  alu- 
minum citrate.  The  one  electrode  is  of  either  carbon  or  lead, 
while  the  other  is  of  aluminum. 

"If  the  aluminum  electrode  is  connected  to  the  positive  ter- 
minal of  a  variable  direct  current  supply,  a  bright  glow  and 
finally  a  brilliant  series  of  sparkling  spots  will  be  developed 
on  the  surface  of  the  electrode  as  the  voltage  is  raised  by 
means  of  a  potentiometer,"  he  added. 

Agricultural  Yields  Tripled 

There  will  be  a  lot  of  changes  made  on  the  farm  of  the 
more  distant  future.  Cheap  electricity  will  mean  that  plowing 
and  reaping  will  be  carried  on  by  electric  power  rather  than 
by  gasoline,  and  the  growing  of  crops  could  be  speeded  up 
tremendously  by  heating  the  soil.  The  bombardment  of  seeds 
with  X  rays  will  juggle  their  chromosomes  around  and  pro- 
duce many  new  plants.  General  Electric  scientists  already 
have  obtained  improved  flower  specimens  by  bombarding 
seeds  and  seedlings  with  million-volt  X  rays. 

In  its  Chemical  Industry  Survey  the  investment  firm  of 
Merrill  Lynch,  Pierce,  Fenner  and  Beane  announced: 

"The  farms  of  the  future  may  be  large  green  houses  with 
roofs  of  plastics  or  new  types  of  glass  through  which  the 


268  Miracles  Ahead! 

ultra-violet  rays  of  the  sun  will  pour  unhindered.  Under  care- 
fully controlled  temperatures  and  through  the  use  of  highly 
concentrated  chemically  created  fertilizing  agents,  these  farms 
of  the  future  may  deliver  12  crops  per  year;  may  produce 
much  higher  yields  per  crop.  And  the  chemical  industry,  by 
reason  of  its  ever  broadening  demand  for  farm  products  as 
raw  materials  may  well  provide  a  permanent  and  economi- 
cally sound  solution  to  the  recurring  problem  of  surplus  crops 
that  plagued  the  American  farmer  in  the  years  before  the 


war." 


Ships  without  Crews 

If  Steinmetz's  prediction  of  dirt-cheap  electricity  comes 
true,  the  railroad  will  receive  a  boost  that  will  permit  it  to 
compete  more  strongly  with  the  auto  and  airplane. 

"Cheap  electricity  will  transform  the  railway,"  wrote  Wal- 
demar  Kaempifert.  "Our  individualistically  operated  locomo- 
tives will  give  way  to  electric  locomotives  that  derive  their 
energy  from  one  of  fifty  or  a  hundred  enormous  central  sta- 
tions erected  at  strategic  points." 

The  day  may  also  come  when  the  crew  on  the  flagship  will 
sail  all  the  ships  of  a  fleet.  The  late  Nikola  Tesla,  great  scien- 
tific genius,  contended  a  few  years  ago  that  radiodynamic 
control  would  make  it  possible  for  us  to  send  crewless  ships 
across  the  ocean. 

Edible  "Cans" 

Getting  back  home,  consider  the  fact  that  you  may  some- 
day dump  the  contents  of  a  can  of  beans  into  the  saucepan — 
and  then  chop  up  the  can  and  toss  it  in,  too.  If  it  were  a  corn- 
flavored  can  we  would  have  a  tasty  bowl  of  succotash.  Presi- 
dent Willard  H.  Dow  of  the  Dow  Chemical  Company  re- 


More  Miracles  Ahead  269 

marks  that  we  have  synthetic  sausage  casings  and  tasty  ice- 
cream cones,  which  we  don't  toss  away.  "Why  stop  there?" 
he  asks. 

Remarking  that  the  possibilities  of  President  Dow's  plan 
are  "gargantuan  in  scope,"  the  Christian  Science  Monitor 
declared  that  "citizens  ought  to  do  some  thinking  on  the 
problem.  .  .  . 

"Perhaps  you  would  prefer  to  contemplate  an  edible  can  of 
whipped  cream  flavor  to  go  with  preserved  strawberries.  One 
could  then  chop  a  can  to  pieces  in  the  salad  bowl  and  use  the 
contents  on  home-made  biscuits.  The  union  of  rhubarb  and 
cream  appeals  as  a  happy  possibility.  And  a  tomato  ketchup 
flavored  container  to  surround  canned  baked  beans  should 
appeal  to  a  wide  public.  The  whole  field  needs  thorough 
exploration." 

When  we  don't  feel  like  cooking  even  a  delicious-flavored 
can,  we  will  turn  over  and  go  back  to  sleep  when  the  milkman 
delivers  our  milk  at  6:00  A.M.  No  need  to  worry  about  getting 
breakfast.  The  foodman  will  deliver  it  at  8:00  A.M.  Better 
Homes  and  Gardens  for  May,  1943,  explains  that  the  new 
war-food  packages  have  started  companies  to  thinking  along 
the  above  line.  Food  for  paratroopers  is  sealed  under  high 
vacuum  in  bags  of  laminated  plastic  and  paper.  The  packages 
are  hard  as  wooden  boxes  and  can  be  thrown  to  the  floor 
without  denting.  Food  in  packages  similar  to  this  will  keep 
hot  for  hours,  or  even  a  day,  after  cooking.  Thus  food-utility 
companies  could  deliver  a  day's  supply  of  meals,  which  would 
stay  piping  hot  until  you  wanted  to  eat. 

In  the  not- too-distant  future  the  housewife  will  be  enjoy- 
ing the  speed,  economy,  and  convenience  of  electronic  cook- 
ing. You  can  put  a  roast  in  the  oven  when  you  sit  down  to  the 
dinner,  and  it  will  be  ready  to  serve  when  you  have  finished 
your  soup.  Because  this  method  generates  heat  from  the  inside 
at  the  same  rate  as  from  the  outside,  food  can  be  cooked 


270  Miracles  Ahead! 

through  with  no  danger  of  burning.  Bread  can  be  baked  with- 
out a  crust,  and  a  large  piece  of  meat  can  be  roasted  as  quickly 
as  a  small  one.  Since  the  heat  is  concentrated  in  the  food,  roast- 
ers and  pans  stay  comparatively  cool  and  the  danger  of  burns 
is  eliminated. 

This  matter  of  food  brings  up  the  subject  of  teeth,  and 
teeth  bring  up  the  point  that  you  may  not  have  to  worry 
about  going  to  a  dentist  in  the  future  world  of  miracles. 
Research  has  established  the  fact  that  fluorine  tends  to  pre- 
vent tooth  decay.  It  would  be  possible  to  add  the  small 
amount  required  to  the  city's  drinking-water  supply. 

The  Vortex  Gun 

Are  you  smoking  a  cigarette  now?  Did  you  just  blow  a 
smoke  ring?  These  questions  serve  to  introduce  a  strange 
device  called  the  vortex  gun,  which  has  aroused  the  interest 
of  military  men  today  and  will  amaze  you  by  its  feats  in  the 
future. 

The  vortex  gun  consists  of  a  metal  drum  with  a  round  open- 
ing on  one  side  and  a  rubber  diaphragm  on  the  other.  Demon- 
strating this  device,  Dr.  Phillips  Thomas,  research  engineer 
of  the  Westinghouse  Electric  &  Manufacturing  Company, 
sighted  it  at  a  row  of  candles  about  ten  feet  away,  and  then 
tapped  the  back  of  the  drum  with  a  rubber  hammer.  One  of 
the  candles  was  snuffed  out  instantly.  He  pointed  the  "gun" 
at  a  gong,  and  tapped  the  drum.  The  gong  rang. 

"These  seemingly  miraculous  feats  were  accomplished  by 
an  invisible  ring  of  air,  a  smoke  ring  without  smoke,  shot  from 
the  aperture  by  the  force  with  which  Dr.  Thomas  struck 
the  back  of  the  drum,"  explained  Popular  Science,  August, 
1942.  Designed  on  the  basis  of  elaborate  mathematical  cal- 
culations by  Westinghouse  scientists,  this  device  embodies 
the  first  practical  application  of  the  well-known  principle  of 


More  Miracles  Ahead  271 

vortex  (violently  circling)  motion.  ...  A  smoke  ring,  which 
is  a  true  vortex  ring,  will  move  in  any  direction  according  to 
the  initial  impulse,  and  owing  to  the  vortex  motion  the  smoke 
will  remain  in  the  ring  as  long  as  it  is  moving.  The  more  rapid 
the  motion  the  farther  the  ring  will  go  before  breaking  up. 

"The  rings  or  miniature  whirlwinds  shot  from  the  vortex 
gun  conform  to  the  behavior  pattern  of  the  smoke  ring  as 
blown  from  the  mouth.  Their  size  and  velocity,  and  the  dis- 
tance traveled,  depend  upon  the  dimensions  of  the  gun  and 
the  force  with  which  it  is  struck.  They  are  always  invisible 
unless  smoke  or  some  other  visible  substance  is  put  in  the 
gun." 

A  small  vortex  gun  about  eight  inches  in  diameter  shoots  a 
ring  with  a  diameter  of  two  to  three  inches.  The  ring  travels 
around  twenty  feet  a  second  and  its  impact  can  be  felt  at 
twenty-five  feet.  Another  gun,  which  is  about  six  and  one- 
half  feet  in  diameter,  shoots  an  eighteen-inch  ring  at  a  speed 
of  ninety  miles  an  hour.  It  will  snuff  out  candles  at  sixty  to 
seventy  feet,  and  at  closer  range  it  will  upset  a  man  if  he  is 
not  prepared  for  the  blow. 

Engineers  are  planning  guns  of  twelve  to  fourteen  feet  in 
diameter.  They  will  be  fired  with  a  TNT  cartridge,  and  will 
hurl  a  four-  or  five-foot  ring  one  mile  at  a  speed  of  eight  hun- 
dred to  one  thousand  miles  per  hour.  This  ring  will  strike  an 
object  with  devastating  power,  and  probably  could  knock 
a  bomber  out  of  control.  Dr.  Thomas  believes  much  bigger 
guns  can  be  built,  so  long  as  a  method  can  be  devised  to  strike 
the  diaphragm  with  sufficient  force. 

Before  the  war  is  over,  Nazi  planes  may  be  assailed  by  man- 
made  tornadoes.  In  peacetime  the  vortex  gun  could,  accord- 
ing to  Dr.  Thomas,  be  used  to  rid  an  industrial  area  of  smoke. 
He  suggests  that  huge  vortex  guns  might  be  installed  below 
or  above  the  roof  to  trap  all  the  smoke  from  a  plant.  Auto- 
matic hammers  would  strike  the  drums  at  regular  intervals, 


272  Miracles  Ahead! 

and  blow  huge  smoke  rings  skyward  at  several  hundred  miles 
an  hour.  Industrial  cities  would  lose  their  unsightly  and  dis- 
agreeable blanket  of  smoke  and  soot;  cleaning  and  painting 
bills  would  be  cut  sharply,  and  living  conditions  would  be 
greatly  improved. 

Fantastic?  Yes?  Impossible?  Impossible  is  a  strong  word  to 
use.  Perhaps  all  these  predictions  will  not  come  true.  Perhaps 
all  these  will  come  true,  and  a  score  of  others.  We  have  not 
rounded  up  all  of  them. 

Only  the  future  will  tell  whether  our  prophets  are  right. 
But,  at  any  rate,  they  may  join  a  company  of  distinguished 
forecasters  of  "things  to  come": 

Seven  hundred  years  ago  Roger  Bacon  predicted  a  dozen 
of  the  commonplaces  of  today — which  were  fantastic  impos- 
sibilities then.  In  fact,  they  were  so  fantastic,  and  Bacon  knew 
so  well  the  tenor  of  his  times,  that  he  saved  his  neck  by  put- 
ting his  predictions  in  a  cipher.  But  recently,  when  the  pre- 
dictions were  deciphered,  we  found  he  had  envisioned  the 
microscope,  the  telescope,  explosives,  and  incandescent  lights. 

In  1887  Edward  Bellamy,  social  philosopher,  predicted  the 
radio  when  he  described  that  a  person  "merely  touched  one 
or  two  screws,  and  at  once  the  room  was  filled  with  music." 

And  Eratosthenes  of  Gyrene,  eighteen  hundred  years  before 
the  voyage  of  Columbus,  predicted  men  should  someday  sail 
beyond  "the  Gates  of  Hercules"  and  find  the  world  was 
round. 


INDEX 


Acetic  acid,  158,  163 

Acetylene,  162 

Acids,  acetic,  158;  amino,  170,  254; 
carbolic,  160;  hydrochloric,  177; 
naphthoxyacetic,  212;  nitric,  163; 
salicylic,  159;  sulphuric,  162,  207 

Acrylate  resins,  164;  Lucite,  35,  36, 
164;  methyl  methacrylate,  150, 
164 

Adam,  Flight  Lieutenant,  of  Royal 
Air  Force,  84 

Aeronca,  60 

"Age  of  Air,"  76,  79;  health  problems 
of,  259 

Agriculture,  157;  chemurgy,  199-203, 
204-210,  215;  electricity  on  farm, 
267;  farm  buildings,  213-214;  "farm 
problem,"  199-200;  greenhouse 
farms,  267-268;  hydroponics  (soil- 
less agriculture),  211-212;  jeep  on 
farm,  51-52,  60,  139,  214;  long-term 
prediction  of  weather,  213;  ma- 
chinery, 213;  TV  A  programs,  210; 
transportation,  214 

Agriculture,  Department  of,  210; 
chemurgy,  109-203,  204,  210,  215; 
Bureau  of  Home  Economics,  216; 
Bureau  of  Plant  Industry,  212;  Re- 
gional Research  Laboratories,  199, 
205 

Air  conditioning,  30-31;  aided  by 
cheap  electricity,  266;  automobile, 
42,  44;  busses,  1 08;  cities,  266;  make 
civilization  move  southward,  266- 
267;  railroad  cars,  103 

Airlines,  7,  97-98,  101,  113,  114;  and 
first  class  mail,  6,  86,  98;  and  pas- 
senger and  freight  revenue,  85-86; 
Air  Transport  Command  and 
Naval  Air  Transport  Service,  87- 


88;  Eastern  Airlines,  86;  flexibility 
of  service,  78;  glider  "trains,"  oo- 
92;  Pan  American,  76;  Pennsylva- 
nia-Central, 80;  seadrome  route,  80- 
81;  speed  versus  cost,  78-79; 
United  Airlines,  77;  Western  Air 
Lines,  88 

Airlines,  international,  98-100;  CAB, 
99;  Pan  American,  98;  right  of  "in- 
nocent passage,"  99;  Trippe,  Juan, 
favors  international  competition, 
98-100 

Airplane,  cargo  and  passenger,  9,  78, 
80-90,  114,  170,  222;  ambulance 
plane,  234;  Consolidated  Vultee 
airliner,  79;  deicing  equipment,  81- 
82;  engines,  86;  Kaiser-Hughes 
HKi,  90;  loading  techniques  for 
cargo,  88-89;  pressurized  cabins, 
84-85;  speed  versus  cost,  78-79; 
Stratoliner,  81-82,  84;  super-clip- 
pers, 76 

Airplane,  light  planes,  12,  60-6 1,  98, 
170;  Aerocar,  71-72;  Aeronca,  60; 
Cessna,  60;  converted  into  car,  70, 
71;  Er "coupe,  74;  "grasshopper," 
60-61;  how  to  fly,  72-74;  hydro- 
matic  propeller,  70,  83;  landing 
gears,  71,  74;  Piper  Cub,  60;  safe 
landings  at  night,  74-75,  141-142; 
simplified  flying,  74-^75;  Skyfarer, 
74;  two-speed  propeller,  70;  wing 
flaps,  74 

Air  Transport  Command,  U.  S. 
Army,  87-88,  98 

Airways,  Federal,  System,  95-97; 
Alaskan  Airways  System,  96;  Civil 
Aeronautics  Administration,  95 

Alaska,  in  "Age  of  Air,"  80,  87;  Air- 
ways System,  96 

Alchemists,  262;  transmutation  of 
matter,  262 


273 


274 


Index 


Alcohol,  from  grain,  153-154;  from 
petroleum,  153,  158 

Alkyd  resins,  164 

Allegheny  General  Hospital,  244 

Alloys,  steel,  48,  178,  197;  chrome 
steel,  179;  manganese  steel,  178; 
molybdenum  steel,  179;  nickel  steel, 
179;  stainless  steel,  179;  tungsten 
steel,  179;  vanadium  steel,  179 

Altimeter,  air  pressure,  94;  absolute 
altimeter,  94-95,  142 

Aluminum,  48,  49,  107,  158,  166,  174, 
175,  197;  alloys,  175;  Hall  process, 
174;  in  body,  219 

Aluminum  citrate,  267 

Ambulance,  plane,  234;  train,  235 

American  Institute  of  Architects,  23 

American  Institute  of  Public  Opin- 
ion, survey  of  colds,  252 

American  Bantam  Car  Company,  51 

American  Glass  Review,  192-193 

American  Iron  and  Steel  Institute, 
184 

American  Rocket  Society,  93 

Amino  acid,  170,  249-250,  254 

Ammonia,  high-pressure  synthesis  of, 
157,  161,  210 

A.M.  ("amplitude  modulation")  ra- 
dio, 143,  147 

Anesthesia,  regional,  256 

Anheuser-Busch,  Inc.,  227 

Aniline,  160;  dyes,  159 

Annealing,  193,  195 

Antiaircraft  guns,  controlled  by  Ra- 
dar, 121 

Antibodies,  222;  proteins,  202,  221 

Apartments,  23;  prefabricated  units, 
24-26 

Appliances  (See  Household) 

Aralac,  170,  202 

Architectural  Forum,  on  acoustics, 

32-33 

Arctic  Ocean,  in  "Age  of  Air,"  79 
Armstrong,  Edward  R.,  80 
Army  Air  Corps,  United  States,  69, 

84,  98;  super-bomber,  85 
Army  Medical  Corps,  United  States, 

167;    experiments   with    penicillin, 

243-244;  hospitals,  228,  230-232,  234, 


235;  rehabilitation  of  wounded, 
237;  sulfathiazole  prophylaxis,  241- 
242;  training  of  doctors,  236 

Army  Signal  Corps,  United  States, 
1 20,  140,  167 

Army,  United  States,  105-106,  167; 
"health  bomb,"  242;  recovery  of 
wounded,  228 

Arnold,  General  H.  H.,  85 

Aromatic  hydrocarbons,  155 

Arsenic  drugs,  mapharsen,  241;  sal- 
varsan  ("606"),  238 

Arthritis,  256 

Association  of  American  Railroads, 
Car  Service  Division,  106 

Atabrin,  247 

Atmospheric  pressure,  82-84,  94 

Atom,  radioactive,  257;  atomic  en- 
ergy, 261-262;  "made  to  order," 
263-264;  smashing,  cyclotron,  262- 
263 

Autogiro,  60;  compared  to  helicop- 
ter, 69 

Autoejector,  for  revival  of  dead  ani- 
mals, 255 

Automobile,  6,  42-59,  101;  and  jeep, 
51-52;  cost  of  postwar  cars,  46- 
47;  engine,  44,  46;  high-octane  gas- 
oline, 54-55;  light  metals,  53-54; 
plastics  and  plywood,  43,  52-53,  54; 
safety  on  highways,  43,  56-57;  styl- 
ists versus  engineers,  45-46;  visibil- 
ity increased  for  driver,  43 

Automobile  industry,  15,  26,  45-46, 
97;  competition  with  aviation  in- 
dustry, 58-59;  problem  of  tools  and 
dies,  58;  postwar  dilemma,  57 

Automotive  Engineers,  Society  of, 
in 

Aviation  industry,  97;  Boeing  Strato- 
liner,  Flying  Fortress,  84-85;  Con- 
solidated Vultee,  79;  Grumman 
Aircraft  Corporation,  90;  Kaiser- 
Hughes  H-Ki,  oo ;  influence  on 
automobile  design,  44;  on  furniture 
designs,  35;  light  planes,  60;  Mars 
flying  boat,  77;  postwar  prospects, 
97-98;  use  of  plastics,  plywood,  53, 
1 66,  191;  plasticized  paper,  187 


Index 


275 


Avidin,  251 

Axes,  vertical,  longitudinal,  lateral  of 
plane,  72-74 


B 


Babb,  Charles  H.,  89 

Bacon,  Roger,  272 

Baird  Company,  134 

Baldwin,  Hanson  W.,  121 

Banting,  Sir  Frederick,  85 

Bathrooms,  36-37 

"Bathtub  butyl,"  155 

"Battle  of  Britain,"  85 

Battleship,  173;  plastics  in,  150;  radio 
equipment,  140;  use  of  Radar,  121 

Bauxite,  174 

Beechnut  Packing  Company,  223 

Beefsteak,  synthetic,  227 

Bel  Geddes,  Norman,  15 

Bellamy,  Edward,  272 

Bellevue  Hospital,  Cancer  Division 
of,  251 

Bell  Telephone  Laboratories,  162-163 

Belmont  Iron  Works,  81 

Benjamin,  Dr.  Harry,  258-259 

Benzol,  160-161 

Bergius,  Professor  Friederich,  189- 
190 

Beryllium,  181-182;  copper  alloy,  48, 
182;  nickel  alloy,  49,  182;  safety 
tools,  182;  work  on  aluminum  and 
magnesium  alloys,  49,  182 

Better  Homes  and  Gardens,  269 

Bigelow-Sanford  Carpet  Co.,  Inc., 
205 

Biggers,  John  D.,  197 

Biotin,  250;  avidin,  251;  cancer  re- 
search, 251-252 

Blauvelt,  Hiram,  259 

Bliven,  Bruce,  263 

Bloeth,  William,  no 

Blood,  cells,  230;  disease  treated  with 
radioactive  phosphorus,  263;  red 
cells  used  on  wounds,  infections, 
254 

Blood,  clotting  of,  236;  M  rays 
"broadcast"  by,  258 


Blood,  donor,  230-231,  253-254 
Blood  and  Plasma  Exchange  Bank, 

253-254 

Blood,  plasma,  87,  227,  228,  230,  231; 
Blood  and  Plasma  Exchange  Bank, 
253-254;  preparation  of,  230;  sub- 
stitute for,  254 

Blood,  types,  230 

Boeing  Aircraft  Company,  84-85 

Boeing  6-17  Flying  Fortress,  43,  84- 
85,  141,  150,  172 

Boiling  point,  84 

Borsook,  Henry,  218 

Bothezat,  George  de,  67-68 

Brain,  surgery,  257 

Brass  (copper,  zinc),  180 

Brazil,  168 

Bread,  enriched,  217 

British  Broadcasting  Company,  134 

British  Journal  of  Experimental  Path- 
ology, 244 

British  Overseas  Airways,  98 

Broadcasting,  sound  and  television, 
136-137;  "band,"  146-147 

"Broken  stowage,"  in  cargo-ship  load- 
ing, IIO-III 

Bronze  (copper,  zinc,  tin),  180 
Brooklyn  Polytechnic  Institute,  190 
Browning,     Robert,     "Andrea     del 

Sarto,"  261 

Budd,  Edward  G.,  103,  108 
Building  and  Loan  Associations,  27- 

28 

Building  codes,  27 
Buna  N  type,  synthetic  rubber,  154 
Buna  S,  synthetic  rubber,  152,  153- 

154 

Bureau  of  the  Census,  135 
Bureau  of  Mines,  183-184 
Bushnell  General  Hospital,  243 
Business,    opportunities    in    postwar 

period,  8,  10,  n,  98 
Busses,    101-102;  NRPB  report  on, 

1 08;  postwar  designs,  108 
Butadiene,  153,  161,  162;  and  furfural, 

207 

Butyl,  synthetic  rubber,  155 
Butylene  gas,  212 


276 


Index 


Caff  elite,  plastics,  168 

Calcium,  radioactive,  263 

California,    University    of,    Medical 

School,  252 
Camm,  F.  W.,  Television  Manual, 

134 

Campbell,  Major  General  Levin  H., 
184 

Camphor,  synthetic,  168,  209 

Campini,  Signer,  93 

Cancer,  research  with  biotin,  251-252 

Cannon,  Dr.  Paul  R.,  221 

Cans,  edible,  268-269 

Catalyst,  153 

Caproni  Airplane  Company,  93 

Caravan,  C-j6,  89 

Carbon,  158;  compounds  of,  158-159, 
164;  in  Foamglas,  195;  in  steel  mak- 
ing, 178 

Carlisle  Barracks,  Pennsylvania,  231 

Carver,  Dr.  George  Washington, 
200-20 i 

Casein,  202,  254 

Castor  beans,  203 

Cellophane,  165 

Cells,  158,  257;  cancer,  251-252;  M 
rays,  275-278 

Cellulose,  158;  189;  from  castor  beans, 
203;  from  corn,  206;  from  cotton 
linters,  204-205;  wood,  208 

Cellulose  acetate,  163;  Tenite,  165 

Cellulose  nitrate,  163;  celluloid,  163 

Celotex  Corporation,  14 

Cessna,  60 

Chemical  industry,  149,  166-167;  ^ds 
farmer,  268;  indispensable,  171;  in 
two  wars,  167-168 

Chemigum,  154 

Chemistry,  149-171;  chemurgy,  190- 
203,  204-210,  215;  coal-tar  by-prod- 
ucts, 159-162;  petroleum  by-prod- 
ucts, 162;  plastics,  4,  5,  35-36,  43- 
44,  52-53,  103,  107,  108,  124,  149- 
150,  157,  162-167,  168;  recovery  of 
low-grade  ores,  183-184;  synthetic 
rubber,  151-156;  war  job  of,  166- 
167 


Chemurgy,  199-203,  204-210,  215; 
castor  beans,  203;  cotton  linters, 
204-205;  corn,  206;  flax,  204;  pea- 
nuts, 201;  sweet  potatoes,  200-201 

Chia,  204 

Chicago,  University  of,  221 

Childbed  fever,  238 

Chile,  168 

Chlorine,  164,  175,  177 

Chloroform,  162 

Christian  Science  Monitor,  192,  200, 
268-269 

Chromium,  48,  179 

Chrysler  Corporation,  14,  46 

Cigarette  paper,  from  flax  straw, 
203 

Civil  Aeronautics  Administration,  95- 
97,  113-114 

CAB  (Civil  Aeronautics  Board),  6, 
78,  92,  99 

Civilian  Defense,  Office  of,  167 

Clay,  158,  174,  175 

Closets,  mass-produced,  35 

Clothes,  168-170;  from  soy  bean,  203; 
from  wood,  190 

Coal,  bituminous,  159;  by-products 
of,  159-162;  chemicals,  160-161; 
drugs,  159-160;  dyes,  159;  tar,  153, 

157 

Coaxial  cable,  for  television,  133,  147 
Coffee,  1 68 

Coghill,  Dr.  R.  D.,  243 
Coit,  Elisabeth,  23,  36 
Coke,  1 60;  coal,  bituminous,  159 
Colchicine,  213 
Colds,  252,  253 
Colebrook,  Dr.  Leonard,  238 
Cooking,    utensils,    39;    electronic, 

270 

Cooling,  radiant,  34 
Collectivism  and  individualism,  9 
Combustion,  48,  50,  93 
Commutation  service,  by  airplane,  9; 

by  helicopter,  6,  7,  67 
Conservation,  of  forests,  192 
Consolidated  Vultee  Corporation,  79; 

Liberator  6-24,  85 
Convertaplane,  69-70 
Copolymer,  153 


Index 


277 


Copper,  1 80;  beryllium-copper,  48, 
181 

Corn,  cobs  and  stalks,  206;  waxy,  202 

Corning  Glass  Works,  192,  194,  195, 
196 

Cotton,  189,  200-201,  205-206;  cellu- 
lose from,  205;  leather,  205;  roads, 
206;  tire  carcasses,  206 

"Cracking"  of  petroleum,  for  high- 
octane  gasoline,  55 

Cryolite,  174 

Current,  alternating  and  direct,  117- 
118 


acid,  159;  sulfanilamide  and  deriva- 
tives, 1 60;  sulphonal,  160,  229,  230, 
231,  232;  veronal,  160 

Dubos,  Dr.  Rene  J.,  245 

Duffus,  R.  L.,  175 

Du  Pont  de  Nemours,  E.  L,  45,  154, 

Duralumin,  175 

Dyes,  coal-tar,  159;  alizarin,  159; 
mauve,  159;  synthesis  of  indigo, 
Tyrian  purple,  159;  from  petro- 
leum, 162 

Dysentery,  240 


Dahlberg,  Bror,  14 

Davis,  Dr.  Harvey  N.,  187 

Davies,  W.  W.,  77-78 

De  Forest,  Lee,  132 

De  Haviland,  Mosquito  bomber,  53, 

191 

Dehumidifier,  34 
Dehydrated  foods,  222-225 
Dehydrator,  home  equipment,  224- 

225 

Deicers,  81-82 
Deserts,  212;  use  of  photovoltaic  cells 

on,  264 

Detonation,  "knock"  in  engines,  54 
Deville,  Sainte-Claire,  174 
Dicoumarin,  256 
Diesel,  Dr.  Rudolph,  49 
Diesel,  engine,  49-51,  50-51,  102-103; 

in  cargo  and  warships,  111-112 
Diet,  216;  education,  217;  foods,  168, 

216-227;    minerals,    218,    210-220; 

vitamins,  218,  219-220 
Dietz,  David,  45,  199-200,  238 
Diode,  117 

Domagk,  Dr.  Gerhard,  238 
Donald  McKay,  motor  ship,  1 1 1 
Douglas  transports,  89,  92 
Dow  Chemical  Company,   154,  164, 

176,  269 
Dowmetal,  177 
Dow,  Willard,  177,  269 
Drugs,  coal-tar,  159;  aspirin,  160;  ata- 

brin,  160;  phenacetin,  160;  salicylic 


Ear,  plastic  reconstruction  ofr  by 
Drs.  Valdes  and  Schulhof,  255 

Eastern  Airlines,  86 

"Edison  effect,"  116 

Edison,  Thomas  A.,  116,  132 

Egyptians,  20-21 

Ehrlich,  Dr.  Paul,  238 

Electricity,  174-175,  261-262;  on 
farm,  267;  generated  by  thermo- 
couples, 265;  photovoltaic  cell,  264; 
transmission  of  high  voltage  direct 
current,  118;  transmitted  by  radio, 
265-266;  Steinmetz'  prediction  on 
cheap  electricity,  266 

Electrocardiograph,  130 

Electronics,  5,  115-151;  cooking  by, 
270;  electrosurgical  apparatus,  257; 
radio,  34,  132-133;  television,  132, 
133-148 

Electron,  116;  as  catalyst,  264;  "chem- 
otronics,"  264;  current,  261-262; 
gun,  145-146;  microscope,  131,  252, 

257 

Electron  tubes,  117;  diode,  117;  col- 
orimeter, 130;  iconoscope,  145-146; 
photoelectric  tube,  125-128;  spec- 
trophotometer,     1 26-1 27 ;    strobo- 
scope,  129-130;  thyratron,  117-118 
Elements,  used  by  chemist,  158 
Engine,   automobile,   air-cooled,  47; 
Diesel,    49-51;    efficiency   of,    50; 
high-compression,  48;  high-octane 
gasoline,    54-55;    "pancake"    style, 


278 


Index 


44;  rear-engine  installation,  44; 
weight,  47 

Engine,  aviation,  86;  "flat-opposed," 
70;  light  plane,  60,  70;  Wright  Cy- 
clone, 77;  rocket  motor,  93-94 

Engineering  and  Research  Corpora- 
tion, 74 

Eratosthenes  of  Gyrene,  272 

Erosion,  water  and  wind,  200,  210; 
after  first  World  War,  211 

Erysipelas,  242 

Ether,  162 

Ethyl  cellulose,  166 

Ethylene  dicholoride,  162 

Ethylene  glycol,  162 

Eugenol,  158 

Europe,  protein  deficiency  in,  221- 

222 

Evans,   Colonel   Edward   S.,   79-80, 

91-92 

Evans  Products  Company,  79 
Expansion,  coefficient  of,  194 
Explosives,   159;   cotton  linters  for, 
204,  205;  dynamite,  204;  nitrogen 
for,  167-168;  predicted  by  Roger 
Bacon,  272;  TNT,  160,  161,  162 
Eyestrain,  and  better  lighting,  29-30 


Factory-residential  towns,  214 
Farbenindustrie,  I.G.,  238,  247 
"Farm  problem,"  199-200 
Fatigue,  measured  by  M  rays,  258 
Federal    Government,    compromise 

building  code,  27 
Fellows,  Julian  R.,  3 1 
Fertilizer,  157,  160,  161,  167,  210 
Fiberglas,  195-196 
Flax,  straw,  203 
Fleming,  Dr.  Alexander,  242 
Fleming,  Professor  J.  A.,  116,  132 
Fleming  valve,  116 
Florey,  Dr.  H.  W,  243 
Fluorescent  lighting,  29-30,  40,  103, 

267 
Fluorine,  prevents  tooth  decay,  269; 

in  production  of  cryolite,  174 
Flying  boats,  76-77,  88,  90,  98 


Flying,  simplified,  72,  74;  at  night, 

74-75 

Foamglas,  195 

Food,  1 68,  216-227;  bread,  enriched, 
217;  dehydrated,  222-225;  diet,  216, 
218,  219-220;  "mechanical  cow," 
226-227;  peanuts,  201;  soy  beans, 
203;  storage  of,  195;  sweet  pota- 
toes, 200-201;  uneducated  buying 
of,  218;  utility  companies,  269; 
waste  of,  217,  219 

Food  Distribution  Administration, 
217,  219 

"Food  for  Freedom,'*  211 

Forbes  magazine,  183 

Ford  Motor  Company,  52,  53,  168 

Formaldehyde,  162,  163 

Fowler,  Harlan  D.,  89-90 

Fractures,  "closed  treatment"  for, 
232-234 

P.M.  (frequency  modulation)  radio, 

i43»  H7 

Fortune  magazine,  37 
Fort  Worth  Press,  52 
Froesch,  Charles,  86 
"Froth  flotation,"  184 
Fuller,  R.  Buckminster,  16-17 
Furfural,  206-207 
Furnace,  smokeless,  31-32;  oilburn- 

ing,  40 
Furniture,  34-35,  165 


Gahagan,  Andrew  J.,  182 
Galdston,  Dr.  lago,  Behind  the  Sulfa 

Drugs,  237,  238,  242 
Gas  gangrene,  240-241 
Gasoline,  high-octane,  42,  54-55,  109; 
"triptane,"  55;  hydrocarbons,  162, 
171 

Gelmo,  P.,  238 

General  Aircraft  Corporation,  74 
General  Electric  Company,  82 
General  Electric  Research  Laborato- 
ries, 118,  177,  186 

General  Hospital  of  Catalonia,  233 
General  Motors  Corporation,  14,  50 
General  Tire  &  Rubber  Co.,  151-152 


Index 


279 


Gerard,  Ralph  W.,  255,  257 

Geriatrics,  258 

Gericke,  Professor  W.  F.,  211-212 

Germany,  chemical  leadership  lost  to 
U.  S.,  168;  wood  chemistry  pro- 
gram, 1 88 

Gerontology,  258 

Gerontotherapy,  258-259 

Gilbert,  Jr.,  Cass,  18,  19 

Glass,  5,  40,  57,  185,  195,  197,  198; 
Fiberglas,  195-196;  Foamglas,  195; 
for  tire  cord,  43;  optical,  196,  197; 
production  research,  196;  Pyrex, 
194;  how  flame-proof  glass  is  made, 
194;  Vycor,  194 

Glesinger,  Egon,  Nazism  in  the 
Woodpile,  188-190 

Glider,  "trains"  for  freight  and  pas- 
sengers, 5,  90-92,  98,  1 08;  first  flight 
across  Atlantic,  92 

Goddard,  Dr.  R.  H.,  93 

Goering,  Hermann,  188-189 

Gold,  180-181;  photovoltaic  cell,  264 

Gonorrhea,  241;  prophylaxis,  241- 
242 

Goodyear  Tire  &  Rubber  Company, 

J54 

Graf  Spee,  1 1 1 
Gramicidin,  245-246 
Granite  (feldspar),  158 
"Grasshoppers,"  liaison  planes,  60-6 1 
Gravity,  center  of,  44 
Great  American  Desert,  212 
"Great  Circle"  routes,  70-80 
Great  Lakes,  106 
Great  Salt  Lake,  176 
Greenland,  174 
Gregory,  Colonel  H.  F.,  65 
Grid,  118-119,  132 
Gropius,  Dr.  Walter,  214 
Grumman  Aircraft  Corporation,  90 
Guild,  Lurelle,  108 
Gun  metal  (copper,  tin),  180 
Gunnison  Housing  Corporation,  191 

H 

Haldane,  J.  B.  S.,  255 
Hall,  Charles  Martin,  174 


Hallett,  Robert  M.,  192 

Halstead,  William  S.,  56 

Hamby,  William,  38-41 

Harrington,  Dr.  H.  HM  177 

Heating,  radiant,  20,  33-34 

Heilman,  Dr.  Dorothy,  245 

Heiser,  Dr.  Victor  G.,  218 

Helicab,  68-69 

Helicopter,  2,  12,  60-67;  amphibian, 
63;  Convertaplane,  60-70;  de  Both- 
ezat  model  of,  67-68;  for  air  mail 
and  express,  6,  66;  for  commuters, 
6,  7,  66;  Helicab,  68-69;  now  to  fly 
it,  61-63;  postwar  possibilities,  66- 
67;  traffic  control  by,  56;  used 
against  submarines,  65 

Hemp,  204 

Heparin,  256 

Herbs,  204 

Hercules  Powder  Company,  150 

Herrell,  Dr.  Wallace  E.,  245 

Herrick,  Gerald  P.,  60-70 

Herty,  Dr.  Charles  E.,  208 

High  altitudes,  protecting  pilot  at, 
83-85 

Highways,  planned  for  safety,  56 

Heroult,  Paul  L.  T.,  174 

Hitler,  Adolf,  188-189 

Hogben,  Lancelot,  Science  for  the 
Citizen,  161-162,  211 

Holden,  Arthur  C.,  26-27 

Holt,  Rackham,  200-^01 

Home,  average,  29 

Home  Economics,  Bureau  of,  216 

Hormones,  259 

Hospital,  228;  battalion,  230;  base, 
234;  collecting  station,  232;  corps- 
man,  229;  field,  232;  mobile  equip- 
ment, 231-232,  235;  rehabilitation 
of  wounded  in,  237;  ship,  236 

Household,  appliances  and  furnish- 
ings, 29-41,  175,  178;  air  condition- 
ing, 30-31;  bathrooms,  36-37;  clos- 
ets, 35;  cooling,  radiant,  34;  fur- 
nace, smokeless,  31-32;  furniture, 
built-in,  34,  new  designs,  35;  glass, 
195,  197,  198;  heating,  radiant,  33- 
34;  kitchen,  38;  "kitchenless  house," 
38-41;  lighting,  29-30;  Precipitron, 


z8o 


Index 


30-31;  soundproofing,  and  better 
acoustics,  13,  32,  33 

Houses,  prefabricated,  6,  12-22,  170; 
building  codes,  27;  construction  of, 
12,  13;  for  farms,  214;  foundation 
of,  12,  17;  land  renting  for,  17,  26; 
standardization,  15,  26;  use  of  glass 
in  construction  of,  195,  197,  198; 
use  of  light  metals,  plastics,  ply- 
wood, 28,  165,  175,  178;  used  for 
war  workers,  13;  utility  unit,  12 

Hunt,  James  F.,  264 

Hurricane,  119 

Huse,  William,  218 

Hycar,  154 

Hycar  Chemical  Company,  154 

Hydrocarbons,  55,  93;  aromatic,  155, 
162;  liquid,  171 

Hydroelectric  plants,  174-175 

Hydrogen,  158,  164;  in  cyclotron, 
262 

Hydroponics  (soilless  agriculture), 
211-212 

Hypertension,  256 

Hypodermic,  229 


Illinois,  University  of,  31 
Illustrated  London  News,  The,  138 
Incandescent  light,  30,  116,  179,  181; 

predicted  by  Roger  Bacon,  272 
India,  diet  of  people,  218 
Indigo,  natural,  156;  synthesis  of,  159 
Indium,  181 
Individualism,  9 
Industry,    2-11;    chemistry   in,    171; 

electronics    in,    117-119,    122-131; 

transmission  of  power  by  radio, 

265-266 

Influenza,  252-253 
Inland  waterways,  101,  106 
"Innocent  passage,"  right  of,  99 
Inoculation,  228-229,  249,  259 
Insecticides,  204,  259;  "health  bomb" 

to  fight  mosquitoes,  247 
Iodine,  radioactive,  263 
Ionosphere,  120,  133 
Iowa  State  College,  200 


Iowa,  U.S.S.,  in 

Iron,  178,  1 80,  181;  in  diet,  219-220; 

radioactive,  263;  photovoltaic  cell, 

264 
Isoprene,  152 


Japan,  124,  168 
Jeep,  51-52,  60,  139,  214,  232 
Jeffers,  William  M.,  151 
Johns  Hopkins  Hospital,  239 
Joslin,  Theodore,  3,  4 
Journal,  American  Medical  Associa- 
tion, 241-242,  244 
JU-88,  93 


Kaempffert,  Waldemar,  253,  266,  268 

Kaiser,  Henry,  16,  90,  102-103,  109 

Kaiser-Hughes  H-Ki  Flying  Boat,  90 

Kaplan,  Professor  Ira  I.,  251-252 

KDKA,  132 

Keck,  George  Fred,  19,  20-21 

Keefer,  Dr.  Chester  S.,  246 

Kerr,  Dr.  William  J.,  252 

Kettering,  Charles  F.,  50-51,  266 

"Kitchenless  house,"  38-41 

Kiev,  Russia,  63 

Kiev,  University,  63 

Knight,  Dr.  Henry  G.,  208-209 

"Knock"  (detonation),  in  engines,  54 

Kochalaty,  Dr.  Walter,  245 

Koch,  Dr.  Robert,  249 

Koegel,  Professor  Fritz,  250 


Laboratories,  Regional  Research,  199, 
205,  243 

Laboratory,  bacteriological,  235;  den- 
tal, 235;  optical,  235 

La  Guardia  Field,  66,  90 

Lamp,  incandescent,  30,  116,  179,  181; 
aluminum  citrate  light,  267;  bac- 
teria destroyed  by,  5,  30,  131;  con- 
trolled by  phototube,  30,  127;  fluo- 
rescent, 29-30,  40,  103,  267 


Index 


281 


Land,  Admiral  Emory  S.,  112-113 

Landing  gear,  71,  74 

Land,  renting  of,  17,  26 

Landing  strips,  for  planes,  56;  "fly- 
ways,"  97 

Langewiesche,  Wolfgang,  86,  97 

"Laundering"  the  air,  with  Precipi- 
tron,  30 

Lead,  181 

Lederle  Laboratories,  243 

Leith,  Dr.  C.  K.,  183 

Lend-Lease,  105,  106,  217,  235 

Lewisite,  155 

Libbey-Owens-Ford  Glass  Company, 
197 

Life,  138 

Life  Insurance  Companies,  27-28 

Ulllustration,  138 

Life,  expectancy,  258;  gerontother- 
apy,  258-259 

Lignin,  208 

Liners,  ocean,  114 

Linseed  oil,  204 

Lippman,  William  A.,  Jr.,  88 

Lissitzyn,  Oliver  J.,  International  Air 
Transport  and  National  Policy,  100 

Lithium,  181 

Little,  Arthur  D.,  Inc.,  Industrial  Bul- 
letin, 206,  244-245 

Loading  techniques,  for  airplanes,  88- 
89;  for  cargo  ships,  no-iii 

"Locomotive"  plane,  5,  90-91,  98 

Loening,  Grover  C.,  90-91 

Lohr,  Lenox  R.,  Television  Broad- 
casting, 136-139 

Long,  Dr.  Perrin,  239 

Lovette,  Captain  Leland  P.,  65 

Lucite,  35-36,  164,  256 


M 


Mack  Truck  Company,  107 
Madder,  159 

Magee,  Major  General  James  C.,  243 
"Magic  bullets,"  238,  242 
Magnesium,    48,    49,    107,    177-178; 

"mined"  from  ocean,  176-177 
Mail,  first  class,  to  go  by  air,  6,  86, 


Malaria,  247,  248;  problem  in  "Age  of 
Air,"  259 

Manchester,  Harland,  183 

Manganese,  48,  178 

Mantell,  C.  L.,  Sparks  from  the  Elec- 
trode, 177 

Mapharsen,  241 

Maps,  mercator-type,  79 

Maritime  Commission,  United  States, 
65,  in,  112 

Marks,  Robert  W.,  183 

Martin,  Glenn  L.,  76-77,  97-98 

Massachusetts  Memorial  Hospital, 
246 

Mayo  Clinic,  245 

McMillen,  Wheeler,  200 

"Mechanical  cow,"  226-227 

Medical  Society  of  the  County  of 
New  York,  253 

Medical  World,  The,  258-259 

Medicine,  wartime,  228-237;  atabrin, 
247;  "closed  treatment"  for  frac- 
tures, 232-234;  gramicidin,  245; 
penatin,  245;  penicillin,  242-245; 
plasma,  227,  228,  230,  231,  253;  sulfa 
drugs,  229,  230,  231,  232,  237-242; 
surgery,  232,  233,  234,  236,  255,  257 

Melamine  resins,  167 

Meningitis,  241;  haemophilus  influ- 
enzae,  241;  meningococcus,  241; 
streptococcus,  241 

Merchant  Marine  Act  of  1936,  109, 
112 

Merchant  Marine,  United  States,  100, 
109,  112 

Merck  &  Co.,  243 

Mergenthaler  Linotype  Company, 
196 

Merrill  Lynch,  Pierce,  Fenner  and 
Beane,  171,  267 

Metals,  lightweight,  6, 42, 48,  103,  170, 
172-178  (See  Aluminum,  Magne- 
sium) 

Metallurgy,  49,  170,  170-180,  182,  184; 
powder,  182-183 

Meteorology,  213 

Methanol,  160 

Methyl  methacrylate,  150,  164,  256 

Metycaine,  256 


282 


Index 


Meyer,  Dr.  A.  J.,  243 

Micarta,  166 

Microphone,  143-144 

Microscope,  263;  predicted  by  Roger 
Bacon,  272 

Midgley,  Dr.  Thomas,  Jr.,  55 

Miles,}.  C,  31 

Milk,  202,  226;  Aralac,  170,  202; 
casein,  202;  "mechanical  cow,"  226- 
227 

Minerals,  in  diet,  218,  210-220 

Minneapolis-Honeywell  Co.,  196 

"Mitogenetic  rays"  (M  rays),  dis- 
covered by  Russian  Dr.  Gurwich, 

257-258 

Molybdenum,  48,  179 
Monel  metal  (copper,  nickel,  iron), 

180 

Monomer,  152 
Monro,  C.  Bedell,  80-8 1 
Monroy,  Johann  Albrecht  von,  188- 

189 

Monsanto  Chemical  Company,  165 
Moss,  Dr.  Sanford  B.,  82 
Motion  picture  industry,  33,  146 
Mudd,  Major  Richard  D.,  231 


N 


Naphthalene,  161 
Naphthoxyacetic  acid,  212 
Nash-Kelvinator  Corporation,  14 
National  Association  of  Manufactur- 
ers, 206,  214-215 
N.E.    (National  Emergency)   steels, 

179-180 
National  Farm  Chemurgic  Council, 

200 

Naval  Research  Laboratory,  120 
National  Resources  Planning  Board 

(NRPB),  27,  106,  108,  215 
Naval  Air  Transport  Service,  88,  98 
Naval  stores  industry  in  South,  208- 

209 

Navy,  United  States,  88,  98,  in,  197; 
battleships,  173,  121,  140,  150; 
equipment,  235;  hospital  ships,  236; 
recovery  of  wounded,  228;  rehabil- 
itation of  wounded,  237;  penicillin, 


experiments  with,  244;  sulfathiazole 
prophylaxis,  241-242 

Nelson,  Paul,  21,  22 

Neoprene,  154,  161,  162,  165 

Nerve,  operations,  256 

Neurosurgeon,  256 

New  Jersey  Agriculture  Experiment 
station,  246 

New  Republic,  263 

News,  television  broadcasting  of,  138 

Neivsiveek,  122 

New  York  City,  traffic  congestion, 
56 

New  York  Herald  Tribune,  176,  259 

New  York  Times,  85,  121,  156-157, 
253,  255,  266 

New  York  Times  Magazine,  175 

New  York  University,  College  of 
Medicine,  251 

New  York  World-Telegram,  45,  1 10, 
196 

Nickel,  179,  1 80 

Nitrogen,  167,  168;  and  biotin,  250; 
changed  to  hydrogen  by  "bom- 
bardment," 262 

Noctovision,  134 

Normandie,  114 

North  African  campaign,  recovery 
of  wounded  in,  228 

North  American  P-52  Mustang,  172 

Northern  spruce,  208 

North  Pole,  "crossroads  of  com- 
merce," 79 

Nylon,  1 60,  169,  256 


O 


Oat  hulls,  206;  furfural,  206-207 

Oberlin  College,  174 

Ocean,  158;  storehouse  of  minerals, 

175-176 

Ogburn,  William  F.,  266-267 
Old  age,  diseases  of,  258-259;  geron- 

totherapy,  258-259 
O'Neill,  Jonn  J.,  176 
Onion  root  "broadcasts,"  257-258 
Ontario  Paper  Company,  207 
Optical  glass,  196 
Ores,  low-grade,  183 


Index 


283 


Orr,  Dr.  Winnett,  232-233 
Osmium,  181 

Osteomyelitis,  233;  treated  by  peni- 
cillin, 243 

Othmer,  Dr.  Donald  F.,  190 
Ott,  Dr.  Emil,  150-151 
Owens-Corning-Fiberglas,  196 
Oxford  University,  243 
Oxygen,  158 


Packard  Motor  Co.,  44 

Pan  American  Airways,  76,  98 

Paper,    5,    198;    aqualized,    186-187; 

chemical    vapor    treatment,     186; 

plasticized,  187;  war  jobs,  185-186 
Parachutes,  161 
Parking,  of  cars,  56 
Pasteur,  Louis,  249 
Patterson,  W.  A.,  101 
Peanuts,  products  from,  201 
Penatin,  245 
Penicillin,     242;     effective     against 

staphylococcus,  243;  for  venereal 

disease,  244;  penatin,  245;  penicil- 

lium    notatum,     242;    production 

problems,  244 
Penicillium  notatum,  242,  245;  mold 

used  directly  on  infections,  244 
Penney,  Gaylord  W.,  30-31 
Pennsylvania-Central  Airlines,  80 
Pennsylvania,  University  of,  245 
Perbunan,  154 
Perilla,  204 
Perkin,  William,  159 
Petroleum,  162;  chemicals  from,  162, 

164,  165;  high-octane  gasoline,  162; 

hydrocarbons,  55,  93,  162,  171 
Pfizer,  Charles,  &  Co.,  243 
Phenol  (carbolic  acid),  160 
Phenolic   resins,    163,    166;   bakelite, 

163 

Phillips  Petroleum  Company,  154 
Phosphors,  29 

Phosphorus,  radioactive,  263 
Photoelectric  tube,  125-128 
Photographic  film,   168;  from  corn 

cobs,  stalks,  206 


Photography,   use   of   photoelectric 

tube  in,  127 

Phthalyl-sulfathiazole,  240 
Pipe  lines,  101 
Piper  Aircraft  Company,  70 
Piper  Cub,  60 
Piper,  W.  T.,  70-71,  72 
Pitcairn-Larsen  Autogiro  Company, 

69 
Pittsburgh  Plate  Glass  Company,  194- 

195 

Plank  Panel  house,  18-19 

Plant  Industry,  Bureau  of,  212 

Plants,  war,  29;  electron  tubes  speed 
production  in,  125-130 

Plasmochin,  247 

Plastics,  4,  5,  35-36,  43-44,  52-53,  103, 
107,  108,  124;  future  of,  157;  mole- 
cules of,  162-163;  thermoplastic, 
163;  thermosetting,  163-164 

Plywood,  53,  107,  108,  190-191;  plas- 
tic-bonded, 170,  190,  191,  208;  R.  F. 
heating  of,  124 

Pneumococcus,  240 

Pneumonia,  239,  240 

Polybutene,  165 

Polymer,  polymerization,  152 

Popular  Science,  270 

Potatoes,  sweet,  products  from,  200- 
201 

Potatoes,  white,  produce  starch  for 
industrial  use,  202 

Potentiometer,  267 

Powder  metallurgy,  182-183;  self -oil- 
ing bearings,  183;  "sintering,"  182 

Precipitron,  30-31 

Prefabrication,  in  housing,  6,  12,  22; 
in  shipbuilding,  100-110 

Pressurized  cabin,  for  high-altitude 
flight,  84-85 

Pressure  suit,  for  high-altitude  flight, 
84 

Prontosil  (see  Sulf anilamide) ,  238 

Prophylaxis,  sulfathiazole,  241-242 

Propeller,  hydromatic,  70,  83;  pro- 
duction of  speeded  by  R.F.  heat- 
ing, 124 

Protein,  202,  221;  deficiency,  221-222; 
in  wool,  238;  soy  beans,  202 


284 


Index 


Public  Affairs  Committee,  18 

Public  Health,  248-249;  in  "Age  of 
Air,"  259;  Service,  259 

Public  Service  Company  of  Chicago, 
224 

Pullman  Car  &  Manufacturing  Cor- 
poration, 1 02 

Pushee,  H.  B.,  151-152 

Pyrex,  194 


Quaker  Oats  Company,  206 

Quartz,  158 

Queen  Charlotte's  Hospital,  238 

Queen  Mary,  1 14 

Quinine,  substitute,  246;  atabrin,  247 


R 


Radar  (Radio  Detecting  and  Rang- 
ing), 142;  aid  to  aviation,  95;  as 
aid  to  motorist,  57;  at  Pearl  Har- 
bor, 120;  in  "Battle  of  Britain,"  119; 
operation  of,  120-121;  postwar  uses, 
121-122;  tantalum  used  in,  181 

Radiator,  automobile,  46 

Radiator,  home,  33 

Radio,  34,  132-133*  H2-I44>  H8;  ab- 
solute altimeter,  94-95;  beams  to 
guide  motorists,  57;  for  liaison 
planes,  61;  range  and  marker  sta- 
tions, 95;  safety  in  blind-landings, 
141-142;  Signal  Corps  equipment, 
139;  superradio  stations  of  CAA, 
96;  traffic  control,  56 

Radioactivity,  263 

Radio  City  Music  Hall,  119 

R.C.A.  Radio-Electric  Laboratories, 
116 

Radiodynamic  control,  of  ships,  268 

Radio  frequency  (R.F.)  heating,  122- 

"4  m 

Radio  industry,  in  wartime,  139-142 

Radium,  257,  263 

Railplane,  102 

Railroads,  7,  8,  101-106;  and  cheap 
electricity,  268;  "Battle  of  Trans- 
portation," 104-106;  Diesel  engines, 


103;  history  of,  101;  improved 
locomotives,  103;  lightweight  cars, 
102-103;  Railplane,  102;  turbines, 
103 

Ramie,  204 

Rationing,  225 

Rations,  U.  S.  Army,  223-224,  226- 
227,  269 

Raw  materials,  crisis  in,  3,  4 

Rayon,  43,  205 

Reduction  gears,  in  airplane  engine, 

83 

Refinery,  162;  gases,  162 
Refrigerator,    37-38;    thermocouple, 

265 

Remmelkamp,  Dr.  Charles  H.,  246 
Republic  P-47  Thunderbolt,  173 
Research  and  Planning  Associates,  24 
Richards,  Dr.  A.  N.,  244 
Rich,  Leo  H.,  57 
Robinson,  Dr.  George  H.,  244 
Robinson,  Admiral  S.  M.,  173 
Robsjohn-Gibbings,  T.  H.,  34-35 
Rockefeller  Institute  for  Medical  Re- 
search, 218 
Rocket  power  (jet  propulsion),  93; 

operation  of  rocket  motor,  93 
Roebling,  John  A.,  Company,  81 
Rohde,  Gilbert,  34 
Roosevelt,  Jr.,  Franklin  D.,  239 
Rosin,  209 
Rubber,  natural,  151,  164;  compared 

with  synthetic,  152,  154,  155,  165; 

future  of,  156-157;  plantations,  151, 

156 
Rubber,  synthetic,  151-156;  Buna  S, 

152-154;  Buna  N,  154;  Butyl,  155; 

furfural  as  solvent,  207;  Neoprene, 

154;    postwar    prospects    of,    156; 
Thiokols,  A,  B,  and  FA,  155;  Thio- 

kol  RD,  154;  Uskol,  154 
Rutgers  University,  246 
Rutherford,  Sir  Ernest,  262 


Salesmen,  in  postwar  period,  8,  98 
Salicylic  acid,  159 
Sanders,  Walter  B.,  24-26 


Index 


285 


Saran,  164-165 

Sarnoff,  David,  94 

Savings  banks,  26-28 

Scarab  car,  47 

Schmidt  camera,  136 

Science  Digest,  117 

Scientific  Research  and  Develop- 
ment, Office  of,  243 

Scripps-Howard  newspapers,  199,  238 

Seadromes,  80-8 1 

Selenium,  181;  photovoltaic  cell,  264 

Servicemen,  in  postwar  period,  8,  98 

Seys,  Squadron  Leader  R.  G.t  of 
Royal  Air  Force,  92 

Shaver,  Dr.  W.  W.,  194 

Shipbuilding,  109-110 

Shipping,  postwar  policy  of  U.  S., 
112;  tramp  shipping,  112 

Ships,  cargo,  100-111;  liners,  114;  ra- 
diodynamic  control  of,  268 

Shock,  230;  plasma  transfusions,  231 

Shoe  soles,  of  cotton,  205 

Siemens  Halske,  182 

Sikorsky,  Igor  I.,  7,  61-63,  64-65,  66- 

6? 

Silicon,  158,  181,  194 

Silver,  180 

Sinus  infections,  treated  with  grami- 
cidin, 246 

Small,  Captain  Lisle  F.,  1 1 1 

Smith,  Geddes,  Plague  on  Us,  248-249 

Smith,  J.  Kent,  182 

Smith,  M.  W.,  103-104 

Smoke,  cleared  from  air  by  vortex 
gun,  271-272 

Soap,  209 

Socony- Vacuum  Oil  Company,  54 

Sodium,  152,  174 

Sodium  sulphate,  193 

Soil  conservation,  210 

Solomon  Islands  campaign,  recovery 
of  wounded  in,  228,  236 

Soundproofing,  13,  32 

Sound  waves,  143 

Southern  Friction  Materials  Com- 
pany, 205 

Southern  pine,  208 

Soviet  Institute  of  Experimental  Biol- 
ogy. 255 


Soy  beans,  168;  products  from,  cloth- 
ing, 203;  cosmetics,  203;  foods,  203; 
house  furnishings,  203;  industrial 
materials,  medicines,  203;  rich  in 
protein,  202 

Spanish  Civil  War,  233 

Spann,  Colonel  George  F.,  248 

Spectrophotometer,  126-127 

Spitfire,  85,  119 

Squibb,  E.  R.,  &  Sons,  243 

Stall,  in  flying,  74 

Standardization,  importance  of  in 
low-cost  products,  26;  in  houses, 

15 

Standard  of  living  of  all  must  be 
raised,  10 

Standard  Oil  Company  of  New  Jer- 
sey, 154-155.  1*5 

Stanton,  C.  I.,  113-114 

Staphylococcus,  240;  penicillin  effec- 
tive against,  243 

Steam  engine,  efficiency  compared 
with  Diesel,  50;  improved  steam 
locomotive,  103-104 

Steam-power    plant,    efficiency    of, 

50 

Steel,  lightgauge,  for  automobile 
bodies,  53-54;  for  trailers,  108;  for 
railroad  cars,  103  (see  Alloys) 

Steinmetz,  Dr.  Charles  P.,  266 

Stevens  Institute  of  Technology,  187 

Stine,  Dr.  Charles  M.  A.,  45,  157,  261 

Stokley,  James,  Science  Remakes  Our 
World,  118-119,  134-136,  264 

Stout,  William,  47,  48,  68-69,  70,  71- 
72,  102 

Stratoliner,  Boeing,  81-82,  84,  85 

Stratosphere,  problems  of  flight  in, 
83-85 

Streptococcus,  239,  240,  246 

Streptothricin,  246 

Stroboscope,  128-129 

Styrene,  153,  161 

Submarine,  111-112;  hunted  by  heli- 
copter, 65,  Radar,  120 

Subway,  Sixth  Avenue,  New  York 
City,  32 

Sugar,  from  wood,  5,  180-190 

Sulfadiazine,  229,  239-240 


286 


Index 


Sulfaguanidine,  240 

Sulfamerazine,  240 

Sulfanilamide,  160,  229,  230,  231,  232, 
237-240;  derivatives,  239-240;  how 
they  fight  bacteria,  242;  toxic  re- 
actions studied,  242 

Sulfapyridine,  239 

Sulfasuxidine,  240 

Sulfathiazole,  239;  prophylaxis,  241- 
242 

Sullivan,  Louis,  19 

Sulphite  liquor,  produces  alcohol, 
207,  208 

Sulphuric  acid,  162,  207 

Sun,  energy  from  162,  264;  harnessing 
rays  of,  264 

Sun  Shipbuilding  &  Drydock  Com- 
pany, 80-8 1 

Supercharger,  for  airplane  engine,  82 

Surgery,  232,  233,  234,  236;  autoejec- 
tor,  255;  brain  surgery,  257;  cure 
for  deafness,  255;  for  hypertension, 
256;  nerve  operations,  256;  regional 
anesthesia,  256;  transplanting  of  or- 
gans, 255;  treating  arthritis,  256; 
use  of  heparin,  dicoumarin,  256; 
use  of  "radio  knife,"  257 

Sutures,  196,  256 

Swain,  Squadron  Leader,  of  Royal 
Air  Force,  84 

Synthesis,  in  chemistry,  157,  159 

Syphilis,  treated  with  mapharsen,  241; 
salvarsan,  238 


Tachometer,  62 
Tank,  M-4,  45,  178 
Tankers,  oil,  105 
Tantalum,  181 
Tapioca,  202 
Taylorcraf  t,  60 
Taylor,  Dr.  A.  Hoyt,  120-121 
Taylor,  Dr.  W.  C.,  192-193 
Teague,  Walter  Dorwin,  15,  16,  37 
"Teco"  ring,  191 

Teeth,  decay  checked  by  fluorine, 
269 


Telephone,  143 

Telescope,  196;  predicted  by  Roger 
Bacon,  272 

Television,  132,  133-148;  cost  of  sets, 
138;  how  it  works,  144-147;  net- 
works, 135,  139;  noctovision,  134; 
problem  of  high-frequency  waves, 
146-147 

Tellurium,  181 

Tennessee  Eastman  Corporation,  165 

Tennessee  Valley  Authority  (TVA), 
15,  175,  210 

Tesla,  Nikola,  268 

Tetraethyl  lead,  55 

Textiles,  synthetic,  9,  157;  Aralac, 
170;  from  soy  beans,  168;  from 
wood,  189,  190;  nylon,  160,  169; 
rayon,  169;  Velon,  169;  vinylidene 
chloride,  169;  Vinyon,  169 

Thermocouple,  to  generate  electric- 
ity, 265;  for  refrigerator,  265 

Thermionic  emission,  1 16 

Thermoplastics,  163 

Thermosetting  plastics,  163-164 

Thiokol  Corporation,  154 

Thiokol  RD,  154 

Thiokols,  A,  B,  FA,  155 

Thomas,  Dr.  Phillips,  270 

Thyratron,  117-118 

Thyroid  gland,  263 

Timber  Engineering  Company, 
"Teco"  ring,  191 

Time,  151 

Tin,  124,  180,  181,  197 

Tires,  automobile,  43,  152,  154 

Tobin,  R.  B.,  223 

Toennis,  Dr.  B.,  250 

Toluol,  from  coal-tar,  160;  from  pe- 
troleum, 162 

Torque,  68 

Toxic  reactions,  of  sulfa  drugs,  242; 
none  in  penicillin,  243 

Traffic  congestion,  cost  of,  56 

Tramp  shipping,  112 

Transfusions,  blood,  230-231 

Transmutation  of  matter,  262 

Transportation,  air  versus  land,  86, 
101;  air  versus  sea,  113-114;  glider 
"trains,"  90-92;  improvements  in, 


Index 


287 


6,  7;  revolutionizing  of  transport 

to  aid  farmer,  214 
Trees,  bark  of,  for  clothing,  5 
Trinitrotoluene  (TNT),  160 
Trippe,  Juan,  98-100 
Triptane,  55 
Tropopause,  84 
Trucks,  101-102;  NRPB  report  on, 

107;  "Truck  of  Future,"  108;  war 

job,  107 

Trueta,  Jose,  233-234 
Tryptophane,  arnino  acid,  170,  249 
Tuberculosis,  257 
Tung  oil,  204 
Tungsten,  30,  116,  117,  179 
Turbine,  gas,  103;  steam,  104 
Turpentine,  209 

Tuskegee  Institute,  Alabama,  200 
Typhoid  fever,  249;  vaccine,  249 
Tyrian  purple,  159 


U 


Ultrahigh  frequency,  95-96;  in  Radar, 
120;  in  television,  133-134,  146- 

J47 

Underconsumption,  and  "farm  prob- 
lem," 199-200;  during  19305,  8 

Union  Carbide  and  Carbon  Corpora- 
tion, 162 

United  Aircraft  Corporation,  Sikor- 
sky Division  of,  65 

United  Nations,  98,  100 

United  States  Rubber  Company,  154 

United  States  Steel  Company,  81 

Urea,  163-164 

Urea  formaldehyde,  163 

Uskol,  154 


Vacuum,  perfect,  04 
Vacuum  tube,  116-117 
Vaccines,  249 

V  Day  plans,  reconversion,  57 
Vanadium,  48,  179 
Vanillin,  190,  208 


Van  Itallie,  Philip,  225-226 
Vickery,  Rear  Admiral  Howard  L., 

65 

Vienna,  University  of,  238 
Vinylidene  chloride,  164 
Vinyl  resins,  164;  polyvinyl  butral, 

164 

Viruses,  filterable,  252,  253,  257 
Vitamins,  218-220;  Bi,  223,  250,  C,  K, 

229;  biotin,  250;  for  old  age,  259; 

niacin,  250;  riboflavin,  250 
"Voo  Doo,"  92 
Vortex  gun,  270-271;  as  antiaircraft 

weapon,  271;  to  rid  cities  of  smoke, 

271-272 

Vortex  motion,  271 
Vycor,  194 


W 

Wagner,  Dr.  Martin,  214 
Waksman,  Dr.  Selman  A.,  246 
"Walkie-talkie,"  139;  postwar  use  on 

farms,  214 

Wallace,  Dr.  James  E.,  244 
Walnut  shells,  204 
War,  gains  and  losses  from,  i;  two 

world  wars,  2,  3,  4 
War  Information,  Office  of,  97,  105- 

106,  185,  228,  234-235,  236,  237 
Warner,  Edward,  78-79 
War  Production  Board  (WPB),  Of- 
fice of  Production  Research  and 

Development,  183 
War  Shipping  Administration,   no, 

112 

Washington,  Booker  T.,  200 
Water,  distilled,  230 
Water  supply,  248-249 
Watson-Watt,  Sir  Robert,  121 
Waves,  radio,  143;  "carrier,"  144 
Waxy  corn,  202 
Weather,  changes  in,  252;  prediction 

of,  213 

Weaver,  Don  £.,52 
Welding,  and  electronics,   130,  162; 

in  shipbuilding,  109 
Wendt,  Gerald,  151 


288 


Index 


Western  Air  Lines,  88 

Westinghouse  Electric  &  Manufac- 
turing Company,  166,  196,  270-271 

Westinghouse  Research  Laboratories, 
30,  1 66 

Wetherby,  John  M.,  149-150 

Willys-Overland  Motor  Co.,  57 

Wing  flaps,  74,  89 

Wirth  Steel  Company,  81 

Wohler,  Friedrich,  164,  174 

Wood,  157,  158,  198;  American  prog- 
ress in  wood  chemistry,  190-192; 
cellulose,  208;  German  program, 
188-190;  lignin,  208;  "Teco"  ring, 
191;  war  jobs  of,  185 

Woodruff,  Dr.  H.  Boyd,  246 

Wounded,  recovery  of,  228 

Wright  Field,  Ohio,  65 

Wright,  Frank  Lloyd,  19 

Wright,  Russel  and  Mary,  36 


X  ray,  124-125,  130;  diffraction  cam- 
era, 125;  fluoroscopic  screen,  231, 
232;  "liminograph,"  130;  mobile, 
231-232 

Xylol,  160 


Yates,  Raymond,  117;  2,100  Needed 

Inventions,  265,  267 
Yellow  fever,  249 
You  magazine,  219 
Young,  Leo  C.,  120-121 


Zeder,  Fred  M.,  46,  47-48 
Zinc,  1 80